One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Look Back on His Influential Political Career

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas many second-in-commands were limited to minor or ceremonial roles, Cheney held substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "true president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, always calling him in official appearances as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.

The Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a group of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unidentified aircraft approaching the government building.

Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Decisions

He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading reports repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I had faith then and I believe it now."

However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memo setting out circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush too had assumed the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.

Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to walk over.

Investigation Approaches

But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were whether weak or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.

Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to capture the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."

Public Image

Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly leave his lair? This represents a nice way to work, truthfully."

Commercial Ties

Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at multiple billions.

It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation increased from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty