Ex- Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Influential Political Career
The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most significant holders of that position in the nation's history. While numerous vice-presidents were confined to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and said the relationship was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for 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 participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do at that time. I was convinced back then and I hold that view presently."
Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "access to vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, frequently quoting information documents that were whether insubstantial or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create initiatives to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly come out of his lair? This represents a advantageous way to function, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
