Dick Cheney Totally Explained

Everything about Dick Cheney totally explained

Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney (born January 30, 1941), is the forty-sixth and current Vice President of the United States. As Vice President, Cheney is also the President of the United States Senate.
   Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska but soon relocated to Casper, Wyoming where he grew up. He began his political career as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger, eventually working his way into the White House during the Ford administration where he served as White House Chief of Staff. In 1978, Cheney was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming; he was reelected five times, eventually becoming House Minority Whip. Cheney was selected to be the Secretary of Defense during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, a position he held for all but two months of Bush's term. During this time, Cheney oversaw the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, among other actions.
   Out of office during the Clinton presidency, Cheney was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000.
   Cheney joined the presidential campaign of George W. Bush in 2000, who selected him as his running mate. As Vice President, Cheney remains a very public and controversial figure. Many of his policy recommendations initially drew strong approval, but in his second term disapproval of his performance has grown.

Early life and family

Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of Marjorie Lorraine (née Dickey) and Richard Herbert Cheney. He attended Calvert Elementary School before his family moved to Casper, Wyoming, where he attended Natrona County High School. His father was a soil conservation agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his mother was a softball star in the 1930s; Cheney has a brother and a sister as well. He attended Yale University but, as he himself stated, "I flunked out." Amongst the influential teachers from his days in New Haven was Professor H. Bradford Westerfield, whom Cheney repeatedly credited with having helped to shape his hard-line approach to foreign policy. He later attended the University of Wyoming where he earned both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in political science. He subsequently started, but didn't finish, doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In November 1962, at the age of 21, Cheney was convicted of driving while intoxicated (DWI). He was arrested for DWI again the following year. Cheney said that the arrests made him, "think about where I was and where I was headed. I was headed down a bad road if I continued on that course."

Marriage and children

In 1964, he married Lynne Vincent, his high school sweetheart, whom he'd met at age 14. Lynne Cheney served as Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1996. She is now a public speaker, author, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Cheney is a Christian, attending the United Methodist Church. He has two children, Elizabeth and Mary, and six grandchildren. Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, is married to Philip J. Perry, General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security; Mary currently lives in Great Falls, Virginia with her longtime partner, Heather Poe. Mary's pregnancy and her sexual orientation as a lesbian became a source of public attention for Cheney during the 2004 election in light of the same-sex marriage debate.

Vietnam War draft

When Cheney became eligible for the draft, he was a supporter of the Vietnam War but didn't serve in the military. Instead, he applied for and received five draft deferments. In 1989, The Washington Post writer, George C. Wilson, interviewed Cheney as the next Secretary of Defense; when asked about his deferments, Cheney reportedly said, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." Cheney testified during his confirmation hearings in 1989 that he received deferments to finish a college career that lasted six years rather than four, owing to sub par academic performance and the need to work to pay for his education. Initially, he wasn't called up because the Selective Service System was only taking older men. When he became eligible for the draft, he applied for four deferments in sequence. He applied for his fifth exemption on January 19, 1966, when his wife was about 10 weeks pregnant. He was granted 3-A status, the "hardship" exemption, which excluded men with children or dependent parents. In January 1967, Cheney turned 26 and was no longer eligible for the draft.

Early White House appointments

Cheney's political career began in 1969, as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger during the Nixon Administration. He then joined the staff of Donald Rumsfeld, who was then Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from 1969–70.
Cheney was Assistant to the President under Gerald Ford. When Rumsfeld was named Secretary of Defense, Cheney became White House Chief of Staff, succeeding Rumsfeld.

Congress

In 1978, Cheney was elected to represent Wyoming in the U.S. House of Representatives and succeed retiring Congressman Teno Roncalio, having defeated his Democratic opponent, Bill Bailey. Cheney was reelected five times, serving until 1989. He was Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee from 1981 to 1987 when he was elected Chairman of the House Republican Conference. The following year, he was elected House Minority Whip.

Votes

Among the many votes he cast during his tenure in the House, he voted in 1979 with the majority against making Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday, but then voted with the majority in 1983 when the measure passed. He voted against funding Head Start, but reversed his position in 2000.
In 1986, after President Ronald Reagan vetoed a bill to impose economic sanctions on South Africa for its policy of apartheid, Cheney was one of 83 Representatives to vote against overriding Reagan's veto. In later years, he articulated his opposition to unilateral sanctions against many different countries, stating "they almost never work" and that in that case they might have ended up hurting the people instead. In 1986, Cheney, along with 145 Republicans and 31 Democrats, voted against a non-binding Congressional resolution calling on the South African government to release Nelson Mandela from prison, after the Democrats defeated proposed amendments that would have required Mandela to renounce violence sponsored by the African National Congress (ANC) and requiring it to oust the communist faction from its leadership; the resolution was defeated. Appearing on CNN, Cheney addressed criticism for this, saying he opposed the resolution because the ANC "at the time was viewed as a terrorist organization and had a number of interests that were fundamentally inimical to the United States."
Cheney also served as ranking minority member of the Congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair. He promoted Wyoming's petroleum and coal businesses as well, and as a result, the federal building in Casper, a regional center of the oil and coal business, is named the "Dick Cheney Federal Building."

House Minority Whip

In December 1988, the House Republicans elected Cheney as Minority Whip, the second spot under the Minority Leader. As part of the fiscal year 1990 budget, Cheney assessed the requests from each of the branches of the armed services for such expensive programs as the B-2 stealth bomber, the V-22 Osprey tilt-wing helicopter, the Aegis destroyer and the MX missile, totaling approximately $4.5 billion in light of changed world politics. When the 1990 Budget came before Congress in the summer of 1989, it settled on a figure between the Administration's request and the House Armed Services Committee's recommendation. In subsequent years under Cheney, the proposed and adopted budgets followed patterns similar to that of 1990. Early in 1991, he unveiled a plan to reduce military strength by the mid-1990s to 1.6 million, compared with 2.2 million when he entered office. Cheney's 1993 defense budget was reduced from 1992, omitting programs that Congress had directed the Department of Defense to buy weapons that it didn't want, and omitting unrequested reserve forces.
Cheney persuaded the Saudi Arabian leaders to allow bases of American ground troops and war planes in the nation, which became an important element of the success of the Gulf War. Although the mission was controversial, American forces achieved control and Endara assumed the Presidency; Noriega was convicted and imprisoned on racketeering and drug trafficking charges in April 1992. In 1991, the Somali Civil War drew the world's attention. In August 1992, the United States began to provide humanitarian assistance, primarily food, through a military airlift. At President Bush's direction, Cheney dispatched the first of 26,000 U.S. troops to Somalia as part of the Unified Task Force (UNITAF), designed to provide security and food relief. An estimated 140,000 Iraqi troops quickly took control of Kuwait City and moved on to the Saudi Arabia/Kuwait border. After consultation with Cheney and other members of his national security team, President Bush declared a suspension of hostilities. In an April 15, 1994 interview with C-SPAN, Cheney explained that occupying and attempting to take over the country would have been a "bad idea" and would have led to a "quagmire."
Cheney regarded the Gulf War as an example of the kind of regional problem the United States was likely to continue to face in the future.

We're always going to have to be involved [inthe Middle East]. Maybe it's part of our national character, you know we like to have these problems nice and neatly wrapped up, put a ribbon around it. You deploy a force, you win the war and the problem goes away and it doesn't work that way in the Middle East it never has and isn't likely to in my lifetime.

Private sector career

With the new Democratic administration under President Bill Clinton in January 1993, Cheney left the Department of Defense and joined the American Enterprise Institute. From 1995 until 2000, he served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company and market leader in the energy sector.
Cheney's record as CEO was subject to some dispute among Wall Street analysts; a 1998 merger between Halliburton and Dresser Industries attracted the criticism of some Dresser executives for Halliburton's lack of accounting transparency. During Cheney's tenure, Halliburton changed its accounting practices regarding revenue realization of disputed costs on major construction projects. Cheney resigned as CEO of Halliburton on July 25, 2000. As vice president, he argued that this step removed any conflict of interest. Cheney's net worth, estimated to be between $30 million and $100 million, is largely derived from his post at Halliburton, as well as the Cheneys gross income of nearly $8.82 million.
In 1997, along with Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol and others, Cheney founded the "Project for the New American Century," a neoconservative U.S. think tank whose self-stated goal is to "promote American global leadership." He was also part of the board of advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) before becoming vice president.

Vice-President

2000 election

In early 2000, while serving as the CEO of Halliburton, Cheney headed George W. Bush's vice-presidential search committee. On July 25, after reviewing Cheney's findings, Bush surprised some pundits by asking Cheney himself to join the Republican ticket.
Cheney campaigned vigorously against Al Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman, in the 2000 presidential election. Cheney, who had been typecast as being "aloof" during most of the campaign was remarkably lively during his visit to Chicago where he rode the L, danced the polka, served attendees kielbasa with stuffed cabbage and addressed a cheering crowd.
While the election was undecided, the Bush-Cheney team wasn't eligible for public funding to plan a transition to a new administration. So, Cheney opened a privately funded transition office in Washington. This office worked to identify candidates for all important positions in the cabinet. According to Craig Unger, Cheney advocated Donald Rumsfeld for the post of Secretary of Defense to counter the influence of Colin Powell at the State Department, and tried unsuccessfully to have Paul D. Wolfowitz named to replace George Tenet as director of the CIA.

First term

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Vice President Cheney remained physically apart from President Bush for security reasons. For a period, Cheney stayed at an "undisclosed location," out of public view.
On the morning of June 29, 2002, Cheney served as Acting President of the United States under the terms of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, while President Bush was undergoing a colonoscopy. Cheney acted as President from 11:09 UTC that day until Bush resumed control at 13:24 UTC

War on Terrorism

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Cheney has helped shape President Bush's approach to the war on terrorism. Despite contrary claims from The Pentagon, Cheney continued to assert a connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq prior to the Iraq War in several public speeches, drawing criticism from some members of the intelligence community and leading Democrats. He also made numerous public statements regarding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and made repeated personal visits to CIA headquarters, where he questioned mid-level agency analysts on their WMD conclusions.
Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Cheney remained steadfast in his support of the war, stating that it would be an "enormous success story" and made many visits to the country. He often criticized war critics, calling them “opportunists” who were peddling “cynical and pernicious falsehoods” to gain political advantage while U.S. soldiers died in Iraq. In response, Senator John Kerry asserted, “It is hard to name a government official with less credibility on Iraq [thanCheney]."

Second term

George W. Bush and Cheney were re-elected in the 2004 presidential election, running against John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards.
   Cheney's former chief legal counsel, David Addington, is currently his chief of staff. John P. Hannah serves as his national security adviser. Until his resignation in 2005, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr. served in both roles.
   On the morning of July 21, 2007, Cheney once again served as Acting President for about two and a half hours. President Bush transferred the power of the presidency prior to undergoing a medical procedure, requiring sedation, and later resumed his powers and duties that same day.
   Since 2001, when asked if he's interested in the Republican presidential nomination, Cheney has said he wishes to retire to private life after his term as Vice President expires.

Disclosure of documents

Cheney was a prominent member of the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), commonly known as the Energy task force, which comprised energy industry representatives, including several Enron executives. After the Enron scandal, critics accused the Bush administration of improper political and business ties. In July 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Commerce must disclose NEPDG documents, containing references to companies that had made agreements with Saddam Hussein to develop Iraq's oil.
Since 2003, the vice president's staff have opted not to file required reports with the National Archives and Records Administration office charged with assuring that the executive branch protects classified information, nor has it allowed inspection of its record keeping. Cheney refused to release the documents, citing his executive privilege to deny congressional information requests. Such media outlets as Time Magazine and CBS News sarcastically questioned whether Cheney had created a "fourth branch of government" that wasn't subject to any laws.

CIA leak scandal

October 18, 2005, The Washington Post reported that the vice president's office was central to the investigation of the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal, for Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was one of the figures under investigation. On March 6, 2007, Libby was convicted on four felony counts for obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to federal investigators. Libby resigned from his positions as Cheney's chief of staff and assistant on national security affairs after his indictment in 2005. The National Journal reported that Libby had stated before a grand jury that his superiors, including Vice President Cheney, had authorized him to disclose classified information to the press regarding Iraq's weapons intelligence on February 9, 2006. On September 8, 2006, Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State, publicly announced that he was the source of the revelation of Plame's status. Armitage said he wasn't a part of a conspiracy to reveal Plame's identity and didn't know whether one existed.

Hunting incident

On February 11, 2006, Cheney accidentally shot Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, in the face, neck, and upper torso with birdshot pellets when he turned to shoot a quail while hunting on a southern Texas ranch.
Whittington suffered a mild heart attack, and atrial fibrillation due to a pellet that embedded in the outer layers of his heart. The Kenedy County Sheriff's office cleared Cheney of any criminal wrongdoing in the matter, and in an interview with Fox News, Cheney accepted full responsibility for the incident. Whittington was discharged from the hospital on February 17, 2006. Later, Whittington apologized to the vice-president for the trouble the event had caused him and his family. Cheney reiterated that it was an honest accident. Cheney became the target of satire after the incident; one notable reference to the event was Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

Impeachment proceedings

On April 24, 2007, Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio presented articles of impeachment against Cheney, as House Resolution 333. It wasn't initially cosponsored, and was immediately referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where no action was taken. The resolution has acquired twenty-four Democratic cosponsors since its introduction, six of whom are members of the House Judiciary Committee. After six months without a debate or vote, Kucinich re-introduced identical content as a new resolution, House Resolution 799, on November 6, 2007. This was also referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Assassination attempt

On February 27, 2007, at about 10 a.m., a suicide bomber killed 23 people and wounded 20 more outside Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan during a visit by Cheney. Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack and said Cheney was its intended target. The Taliban claim that Osama Bin Laden supervised the operation. The bomb went off outside the front gate, however, while Cheney was inside the base and half a mile away. He reported hearing the blast, saying "I heard a loud boom...The Secret Service came in and told me there had been an attack on the main gate." The purpose of Cheney's visit to the region had been to press Pakistan for a united front against the Taliban.

Policy formulation

Both supporters and detractors of Cheney regard him as a shrewd and knowledgeable politician who knows the functions and intricacies of the federal government. A sign of Cheney's active policy-making role was House Speaker Dennis Hastert's provision of an office near the House floor for Cheney in addition to his office in the West Wing, his ceremonial office in the Old Executive Office Building, and his Senate offices (one in the Dirksen Senate Office Building and another off the floor of the Senate).
In June of 2007, the Washington Post summarized Cheney’s vice presidency in a Pulitzer Prize-winning four-part series, based in part on interviews with former administration officials. The articles characterized Cheney not as a “shadow” president, but as someone who usually has the last words of counsel to the president on policies, which in many cases would reshape the powers of the presidency. When former vice president Dan Quayle suggested to Cheney that the office was largely ceremonial, Cheney reportedly replied, “I have a different understanding with the president.” The articles described Cheney as having a secretive approach to the tools of government, indicated by the use of his own security classification and three man-sized safes in his offices.
The articles described Cheney’s influence on decisions pertaining to detention of suspected terrorists and the legal limits that apply to their questioning, especially what constitutes torture. They characterized Cheney as having the strongest influence within the administration in shaping budget and tax policy in a manner that assures “conservative orthodoxy.” They also highlighted Cheney’s behind-the-scenes influence on the administration’s environmental policy to ease pollution controls for power plants, facilitate the disposal of nuclear waste, open access to federal timber resources, and avoid federal constraints on greenhouse gas emissions, among other issues. The articles characterized his approach to policy formulation as favoring business over the environment.

Health problems

Cheney's long histories of cardiovascular disease and periodic need for urgent health care have raised questions of whether he's medically fit to serve in public office. Formerly a heavy smoker, Cheney sustained the first of four heart attacks in 1978, at age 37. Subsequent attacks in 1984, 1988, and 2000 have resulted in moderate contractile dysfunction of his left ventricle. He underwent four-vessel coronary artery bypass grafting in 1988, coronary artery stenting in November 2000, and urgent coronary balloon angioplasty in March 2001. Staff from the WHMG accompany the president and the vice president while either are traveling, and make advance contact with local emergency medical services to ensure that urgent care is available immediately should it be necessary. He has undergone a number of operations during his tenure.
In 2001, an examination of Cheney with a Holter monitor revealed the presence of brief episodes of (asymptomatic) ectopy. An electrophysiologic study was performed, at which Cheney was found to have an unsteady and potentially fatal heartbeat.
On September 24, 2005, Cheney underwent a six hour endo-vascular procedure to repair popliteal artery aneurysms bilaterally, a catheter treatment technique used in the artery behind each knee. Cheney was taken to hospital for tests after experiencing shortness of breath five months later. In late April, 2006, an ultrasound revealed that the clot was smaller. CBS News reported that during the morning of November 26, 2007, Cheney was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and underwent treatment that afternoon.

Public perception

In the beginning of the Bush administration, Cheney's public opinion polls were more favorable than unfavorable. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, both Bush's and Cheney's approval ratings rose, with Cheney reaching 63% The polling numbers for both men have steadily declined since that period, however.Cheney's Gallup poll figures are consistent with those from other polls:

April, 2001—63% approval, 21% disapproval
January, 2002—68% approval, 18% disapproval
January, 2004—56% approval, 36% disapproval
January, 2005—50% approval, 40% disapproval
January, 2006—41% approval, 46% disapproval
July, 2007—30% approval, 60% disapproval

Cheney has created controversy, mostly from his role in shaping the Bush administration's policies on Iraq and the war on terrorism. In one instance, the vice president was recorded as apparently supporting waterboarding, widely regarded as a form of torture, as an interrogation technique for questioning suspected terrorists. The following day, the White House denied that Cheney was referring to waterboarding or torture.
In April 2007 the Vice President was awarded an honorary doctorate of public service from Brigham Young University, where he delivered the commencement address. His selection as graduate commencement speaker was controversial. The college board of trustees issued a statement explaining that the invitation to Vice President Cheney should be viewed "as one extended to someone holding the high office of vice president of the United States rather than to a partisan political figure." BYU permitted a protest to occur so long as it didn't "make personal attacks against Cheney, attack (the) BYU administration, the church or the First Presidency."

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