One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Impactful Government Service
The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant holders of that position in the nation's history. Whereas countless second-in-commands were confined to marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed 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 terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, making him become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance today."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memo setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (including "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the evil genius in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his commercial relationships pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty