One-time VP Dick Cheney: A Look Back on His Influential Time in Office
The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. Although countless VPs were confined to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised huge power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I had faith then and I maintain that stance now."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," particularly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's face that everyone had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were either weak or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to capture the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen emerge from his lair? That is a advantageous way to function, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as VP. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm increased from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling more than $20m|twenty
