Dick Cheney, who redefined the role of vice president while serving alongside President George W. Bush for two terms that were shaped by the war on terror, died on Monday at 84.
Cheney, who had suffered from heart problems for decades, died due to complications from pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family said in a statement.
“For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States,” the statement said. ““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. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”
Cheney served two generations of Bush presidents. As defense secretary for George H.W. Bush, Cheney helped plan and execute the Gulf War in which American forces swiftly pushed Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait in 1991. But it wasn’t until ten years later, in 2001, that Cheney would reach the height of his power and influence following the attacks of September 11.
As George W. Bush’s vice president, Cheney took on an unusually sweeping portfolio of responsibilities, but his primary focus was the national security arena, where helped craft and vociferously defend the administration’s war on terror. Cheney, who believed the intelligence-gathering and military capabilities of the U.S. government had been weakened considerably since the Vietnam War, led an effort to expand warrantless surveillance and to extend the military’s ability to capture and detain suspected terrorists in far-flung theaters where the U.S. did not have an officially acknowledged presence.
Cheney pushed for the 2003 invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein on the grounds that the dictator was in possession of weapons of mass destruction, which were never found. He aggressively defended the notion of democracy promotion abroad as a means to stabilize the Middle East and prevent future attacks on U.S. soil.
Cheney’s interventionist streak would, years later, serve as the main line of attack on the former vice president from the Republican party’s new standard-bearer, Donald Trump, who would routinely disparage Bush and Cheney for leading the country into the Iraq War as he began to take control of the Republican party starting in 2015. The attacks escalated after Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney, became Trump’s leading Republican critic, particularly after the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021 and Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”
The former Republican vice president, who for many Democrats had come to define the party during the Bush years, surprised the political world last year with his endorsement of Kamala Harris, which her campaign routinely cited as evidence of her bipartisan appeal.
Cheney’s first exposure to politics came in 1968 when he took a job as a congressional fellow. He quickly befriended Representative Donald Rumsfeld (R., Ill.), serving under him in two agencies and the Gerald Ford White House. Cheney eventually became the youngest ever White House chief of staff at just 34 years old. Just over a year later, Cheney returned to Casper, Wyoming and mounted a successful campaign for Congress despite suffering the first of what would become five heart attacks.
Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. His father was an Agricultural Department worker and he was admitted to Yale University on a full scholarship but dropped out with failing grades. He then enrolled at the University of Wyoming where he renewed a romance with high school sweetheart Lynne Anne Vincent, who he married in 1964. He is survived by his wife, his daughter Liz, and his daughter Mary.