One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Influential Political Career

The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. While many vice-presidents were confined to marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "real president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.

A Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a faction of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney stated the attacks changed him, making him become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Controversial Decisions

He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I had faith then and I hold that view now."

However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a document setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically citing military moves against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's visage that each person had to tread upon.

Interrogation Methods

Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of credit."

External Perception

Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? That is a effective way to work, truthfully."

Corporate Connections

Dispute over his business interests pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in business but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at multiple billions.

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