Ex- VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Impactful Time in Office

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Although many VPs were confined to marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "true president".

Bush objected to this portrayal and stated the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public settings as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.

A Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Policies

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it then and I believe it now."

But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a document detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had assumed the presidency somewhat determined on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.

Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's face that all visitors had to tread upon.

Questioning Techniques

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were whether weak or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to apprehend the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

Public Image

Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? This represents a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."

Commercial Ties

Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships 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 was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals valued at multiple billions.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars while military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty