Ex- Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Powerful Government Service

The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most powerful occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. Whereas numerous VPs had to settle for peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "real president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.

The Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a group of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unresponsive planes nearing the Capitol building.

Cheney said the strikes changed him, making him become focused on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Disputed Policies

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I had faith then and I believe it presently."

However even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, deception, unfitness, and graft."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a document outlining circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.

Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his parent, 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 floor mural with a portrait of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to step on.

Interrogation Methods

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were whether weak or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

External Perception

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his lair? That is a effective way to work, in fact."

Commercial Ties

Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as VP. Although he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling multiple billions.

It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the company grew from his $258,394 while Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty