Former Vice-President Dick Cheney: An Examination on the Powerful Government Service

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised huge influence during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "true president".

Bush disliked that description and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.

The Aftermath of 9/11

In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During 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 assumed control, commanding the downing of any non-communicating aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Controversial Policies

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I hold that view now."

However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, unfitness, and graft."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush too had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's face that everyone had to tread upon.

Investigation Approaches

Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were whether thin or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the evil genius in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? This represents a effective way to work, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had limited background in commerce but strong connections in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals worth substantial sums.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation increased from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty