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

The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most influential occupants of that office in American history. Whereas many VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney held enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "actual president".

Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.

A Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a group of neo-conservatives that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unresponsive planes heading toward the US Capitol.

Cheney said the strikes transformed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Actions

He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance today."

Yet even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and corruption."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a document setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.

Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.

Questioning Techniques

Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were whether weak or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."

External Perception

Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly come out of his domain? This represents a nice way to operate, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Debate over his business interests followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals worth substantial sums.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty