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Former VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Influential Political Career
The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most influential occupants of that position in American history. Although numerous VPs had to settle for marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction 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 school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I believed it then and I hold that view presently."
But even then, 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 retained from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a document detailing situations in which American interests might be threatened (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's face that each person had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were either insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to capture the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? This represents a advantageous way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests followed him during his tenure as VP. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
Arthur Perry
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