Former VP Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Influential Political Career

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most significant incumbents of that position in the nation's history. While numerous VPs had to settle for marginal or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "real president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in official appearances as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.

The Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a group of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the downing of any unidentified planes approaching the government building.

Cheney claimed the attacks altered his perspective, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Decisions

He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I was convinced back then and I believe it today."

But even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had written a document outlining situations in which American interests might be threatened (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the White House generally inclined on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his parent's face that each person had to walk over.

Investigation Approaches

Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."

Public Image

Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? This represents a advantageous way to function, in fact."

Commercial Ties

Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements worth multiple billions.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm increased from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty