Former US Vice President Dick Cheney dies at 84
Republican leader and architect of Iraq War remembered as influential yet divisive figure in American politics
WASHINGTON, United States (MNTV) – Former US Vice President Dick Cheney, who served under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009 and played a central role in shaping America’s post-9/11 “war on terror,” has died at the age of 84, his family announced Tuesday.
“His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” the family said in a statement, adding that he died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” the statement added.
Cheney was one of the most powerful and polarizing figures in modern American politics. As vice president, he was widely seen as the driving force behind the Bush administration’s illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, based on claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction—claims later proven false.
Despite global criticism and no evidence of such weapons, Cheney maintained that the invasion was the right decision, arguing it removed a brutal dictator and made the world safer.
Long political career
Cheney’s decades-long political career saw him serve under both President George H. W. Bush and his son. As defense secretary during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he oversaw the US-led coalition that expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait. A decade later, as vice president, he became one of the most influential figures in the Bush White House.
He championed an expansion of presidential powers, believing they had eroded since the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon—his former boss—to resign. Cheney also elevated the vice presidency into an unprecedented center of national security influence.
He was known for clashes with top Bush aides, including Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and for defending the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation against terrorism suspects—methods later condemned by the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the UN as torture.
Political rifts and later years
In his later years, Cheney became a vocal critic of Donald Trump, particularly after his daughter Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman, led investigations into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad supporting his daughter.
In a notable break from his party, Cheney also said he would vote for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Throughout his life, Cheney battled serious heart disease, suffering multiple heart attacks starting at age 37 and receiving a heart transplant in 2012.
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