Former VP Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Powerful Time in Office

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered among the most significant holders of that office in the nation's history. While many VPs were confined to peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney held enormous influence during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "real president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.

A Post-9/11 Era

At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft approaching the government building.

Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Controversial Decisions

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I was convinced back then and I maintain that stance now."

Yet even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a document setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the presidency somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's face that everyone had to walk over.

Interrogation Methods

However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, frequently quoting information documents that were both thin or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.

Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish initiatives to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."

Public Image

Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? This represents a effective way to function, actually."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth substantial sums.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty