One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Impactful Government Service

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as one of the most influential occupants of that office in US history. Whereas many second-in-commands were limited to marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.

A Aftermath of 9/11

At the head of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the downing of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the government building.

Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Disputed Decisions

He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance today."

However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling 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 later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a document outlining situations in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had assumed the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.

Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's face that all visitors had to tread upon.

Questioning Techniques

Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were whether insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney reveled in nicknames imposed on him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication 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 background that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? It's a effective way to work, truthfully."

Commercial Ties

Controversy over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals valued at billions.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty