Former Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Influential Political Career

The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. Although numerous second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".

Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.

A Post-9/11 Era

Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, making him become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Disputed Actions

He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view now."

Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, incompetence, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a memorandum outlining situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing military moves against Iraq.

Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.

Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's visage that everyone had to step on.

Interrogation Methods

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were either thin or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to apprehend the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."

Public Persona

Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that remains unseen leave his hole? That is a advantageous way to operate, actually."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his business interests accompanied him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling billions.

It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company grew from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty