One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Impactful Political Career

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Although many VPs were limited to minor or figurehead positions, Cheney held substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often described as the "true president".

Bush disliked that description and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.

The Period Following the Attacks

Leading of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the government building.

Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retribution. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Disputed Actions

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on inaccurate information circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It was the right thing to do then. I was convinced back then and I believe it now."

But even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and graft."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a document detailing circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to tread upon.

Interrogation Methods

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were either weak or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly leave his hole? It's a nice way to function, in fact."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals totaling multiple billions.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm rose from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty