One-time VP Dick Cheney: An Examination on the Influential Political Career
The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered one of the most significant holders of that position in US history. While countless vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney held substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the correct action to do then. I believed it then and I hold that view now."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had composed a document outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's face that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were either weak or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to capture the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? It's a effective way to function, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests followed him through his period as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm increased from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
