Ex- Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Look Back on His Impactful Time in Office

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While countless second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".

Bush resented this portrayal and stated the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.

A Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, making him become determined on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Decisions

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I believe it now."

However even then, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memo outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's face that everyone had to walk over.

Investigation Approaches

Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were whether thin or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."

External Perception

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? This represents a nice way to work, truthfully."

Corporate Connections

Debate over his business interests accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in business but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at billions.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company rose from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty