One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Impactful Government Service
The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas countless second-in-commands were limited to minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the connection was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the downing of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Together 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, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance today."
Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum detailing scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency somewhat determined on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's face that each person had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, frequently citing intelligence reports that were either thin or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, 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 shadows that nobody ever sees leave his lair? It's a effective way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him throughout his time as VP. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts worth multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation increased from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty
