Ex- Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Look Back on His Powerful Time in Office

The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas many second-in-commands had to settle for minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "true president".

Bush objected to that description and claimed the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a team because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.

A Post-9/11 Era

In charge of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the government building.

Cheney stated the attacks transformed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Controversial Actions

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I was convinced back then and I believe it now."

However even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and graft."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memo setting out circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's face that all visitors had to walk over.

Interrogation Methods

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were either thin or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."

External Perception

Cheney enjoyed monikers imposed on him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a effective way to function, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his business interests followed him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals worth multiple billions.

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