One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Influential Time in Office

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most influential holders of that office in US history. Although many vice-presidents had to settle for minor or ceremonial functions, Cheney held substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "actual president".

Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.

The Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney said the attacks changed him, making him become determined on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Policies

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it then and I believe it presently."

Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memo outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush additionally had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.

Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's countenance that each person had to step on.

Investigation Approaches

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous behind invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were either thin or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to capture the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

Public Image

Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, 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 quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a effective way to function, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Dispute over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as VP. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals worth billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the company grew from his previous salary during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty