Former VP Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Impactful Government Service
The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered one of the most significant holders of that office in US history. While many VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney held huge sway during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, making him become intent on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I had faith then and I hold that view presently."
But even then, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate 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 floor mural with a image of his father's countenance that each person had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were either insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by opponents such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees leave his hole? That is a advantageous way to function, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
