Cheney, Richard (1941–)

Current vice president of the United States, former member of Congress, and public servant under four presidents. A conservative Republican, Cheney has strongly promoted the use of force to protect the strategic interests of the United States. Although he did not support the use of ground troops in the Bosnian conflict because he believed the security of the United States was not threatened by conflict in the Balkans, Cheney strongly advocated the liberation of Kuwait in January 1991, the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, and the overthrow of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003. Although Cheney reduced the military budget during his term as secretary of defense under President George H. W. Bush, he subsequently supported military budget increases.

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney entered federal service in 1969 as special assistant to the director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. In 1971, he became a White House staff assistant during the administration of President Richard Nixon. He was deputy assistant to President Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1975 and then White House chief of staff until President Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977.

In November 1978, Cheney was elected as Wyoming's representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. Reelected for five additional terms, he served several years on the House Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Budget Subcommittee. He became the House minority whip in 1988.

Cheney remained in Congress until 1989, when President George H. W. Bush appointed him secretary of defense, a post he held until 1993. During Cheney's four years as defense secretary, the total budget of his department declined from $291.3 billion to $269.9 billion, and the number of troops in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines declined as well.

Despite budget reductions and troop decreases, Cheney made full use of U.S. military might. He approved the use of U.S. jets to stop the coup against Philippine president Corazon Aquino in November 1989. One month later, he sent 24,000 troops to Panama to drive Panamanian president Manuel Noriega from power. In January 1991, he oversaw Operation Desert Storm, which routed Iraqi forces from Kuwait, and in December 1992, he dispatched the first of 26,000 troops to Somalia to crack down on the looting and extortion that prevented food from getting to thousands of starving locals.

Just before Cheney left office as secretary of defense in 1993, he released a defense strategy paper for the 1990s that emphasized the importance of strategic deterrence and defense, the presence of U.S. troops on the ground, and crisis response. The paper also added science and technology and infrastructure and overhead to the traditional pillars of military capability: readiness, sustainability, modernization, and force structure.

When President Bill Clinton took office in January 1993, Cheney left the Pentagon and joined the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, as a senior fellow. In October 1995, he became president and chief executive officer of the oil services Halliburton Company in Dallas, Texas.

In 2001, Cheney was elected vice president to President George W. Bush. Extremely close to the Bush family, Cheney is considered one of the most influential vice presidents in recent American history, particularly in the areas of national security, the economy, and energy policy. At the same time, however, his relations with Halliburton have remained in question with Democrats, who have criticized the way Cheney helped to develop the administration's energy policies.

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