Former VP Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Influential Government Service

The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas countless vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "true president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.

The Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a group of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated 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 gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the destruction of any unidentified aircraft nearing the government building.

Cheney said the assaults transformed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Controversial Actions

He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the correct action to do then. I had faith at the time and I believe it today."

However even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo setting out situations in which US concerns might be endangered (including "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency somewhat determined on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to step on.

Questioning Techniques

However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or totally deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and torture.

Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that remains unseen come out of his hole? That is a advantageous way to work, actually."

Corporate Connections

Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had limited background in business but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling multiple billions.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty