Ex- VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Influential Time in Office

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant holders of that position in the nation's history. Although numerous VPs had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised enormous influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "true president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.

A Post-9/11 Era

At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes nearing the US Capitol.

Cheney said the attacks changed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Debated Policies

He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I hold that view now."

However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, negligence, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memo setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (including "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.

Bush also had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his predecessor's visage that each person had to step on.

Interrogation Methods

Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to capture the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."

Public Persona

Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his lair? This represents a effective way to work, actually."

Business Interests

Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as vice-president. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals totaling substantial sums.

It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the firm grew from his previous salary during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty