Ex- Vice-President Dick Cheney: An Examination on the Influential Government Service

The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant holders of that position in the nation's history. Although numerous vice-presidents were confined to minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney wielded huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "true president".

Bush objected to that description and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.

A Post-9/11 Era

In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes nearing the Capitol building.

Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Actions

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I had faith at the time and I believe it now."

Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, unfitness, and graft."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a document setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's face that all visitors had to walk over.

Investigation Approaches

Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.

Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly leave his lair? That is a nice way to function, actually."

Business Interests

Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals worth billions.

It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company increased from his previous salary while military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty