Ex- VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Influential Time in Office

The former US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most significant occupants of that position in US history. While countless VPs had to settle for minor or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "actual president".

Bush resented that description and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.

The Post-9/11 Era

In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unidentified planes heading toward the US Capitol.

Cheney stated the strikes changed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Disputed Decisions

He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do at that time. I believed it back then and I hold that view presently."

Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be compromised (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had entered the presidency somewhat determined on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.

Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.

Investigation Approaches

However it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were whether weak or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.

Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to catch the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."

Public Image

Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a advantageous way to operate, actually."

Corporate Connections

Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements totaling multiple billions.

It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation increased from his $258,394 while defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty