Former VP Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Powerful Government Service

The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most powerful incumbents of that position in the nation's history. Whereas many vice-presidents were confined to marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "real president".

Bush disliked that description and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.

A Aftermath of 9/11

At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention 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 attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unresponsive planes heading toward the US Capitol.

Cheney stated the attacks altered his perspective, making him become focused on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Disputed Decisions

He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I believe it now."

However even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, incompetence, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a document setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (including "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.

Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, 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 portrait of his parent's visage that each person had to walk over.

Questioning Techniques

But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of interrogation method and harsh treatment.

Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."

External Perception

Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his hole? That is a nice way to work, in fact."

Business Interests

Dispute over his business interests accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at substantial sums.

It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the firm rose from his previous salary while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty