Former VP Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Powerful Government Service
The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most significant holders of that position in American history. While many second-in-commands were limited to minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney held enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, leading him to become focused on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I believed it then and I maintain that stance today."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a document detailing scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly 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. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his father's face that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were both weak or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to capture the individuals who killed 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."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in monikers given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea 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 quoted as saying: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that remains unseen leave his domain? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests followed him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the company rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty