FORMER US VICE President Dick Cheney has died aged 84.
The veteran politician, who also served as a congressman for Wyoming and held various senior roles in Republican administrations, was vice president to George W. Bush throughout his two terms in the early 2000s.
Cheney – one of the most polarising figures in US politics of the last half century – was a chief architect of America’s ‘war on terror’ and an early proponent of invading Iraq in the wake of the 9/11 attacks of 2001.
He died from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family said. Their statement added that he was surrounded by his wife Lynne and daughters Liz and Mary.
Although most associated with the last Bush presidency and America’s ill-fated decision to topple the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, Cheney had a long political career dating back to the administration of Gerald Ford where he served as White House Chief of Staff.
After a decade in the House of Representatives he was appointed as Secretary of Defense by George H.W. Bush and served in the role throughout the first Gulf War, which pushed Hussein out of neighbouring Kuwait in 1990 and 1991.
He went into the private sector after Bush senior lost to Bill Clinton in 1992, and was named CEO of construction and oil field services giant Halliburton in 1995. He remained in the role for five years before making the switch back to politics as number two to the younger Bush in his 2000 campaign.
The then 59-year-old was a surprise choice for the role – partly due his perceived lack of charisma. It was hoped his political experience and reputation as a staunch conservative would balance out the ticket, as Bush had only served one term as Governor of Texas at the time.
His health was a topic of debate even then, and results from a medical test were widely publicised in the press as he signed on for the campaign. Cheney suffered several heart attacks over the years, including one while still in his 30s, and received a heart transplant in 2012.
Invasion of Iraq
Considered one of the most powerful vice presidents in US history, Cheney brought his ‘neo-con’ ideology to the position and played a major role in many major policy decisions – particularly on the international stage.
He was widely seen as the power behind the president and once said:
“Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?” It’s a nice way to operate, actually.”
He was one of the driving forces behind the push to invade Iraq following the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda on New York’s World Trade Center and Washington.
His inaccurate claims that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction were a major factor in the process that led to the invasion in March 2003.
Estimates of the death toll from the invasion of Iraq vary depending on the source, but most put it in the high hundreds of thousands. Some estimates put the human cost at more than one million.
The ‘war on terror’ led directly to over 940,000 people being killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Pakistan, according to Brown University’s Costs of War research project. An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people died indirectly from the post 9/11 wars.
Cheney was a staunch supporter of the US torturing detainees suspected of being members of Al-Qaeda, insisting in a 2009 interview with Fox News that the practice saved lives and provided vital intelligence.
The so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” included waterboarding, forced stress positions, sleep deprivation and sexual humiliation.
He told Fox’s Chris Wallace at the time that “the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives”.
When asked if he supported the use of techniques deemed illegal, he said he did. Years later, in his 2015 book, Cheney said he would stand over the same methods being used again.
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In one of the more unusual events of his tenure in the White House, Cheney famously accidentally shot a man in the face while on a hunting trip in 2006. Texas attorney Harry Whittington, aged 78 at the time, was peppered with shotgun pellets in the face and chest.
When the lawyer left hospital he said he was “deeply sorry for everything” Cheney and his family had had to deal with after the incident, which was widely covered in the media. Whittington himself died in 2023.
In retirement Cheney became a fierce critic of Donald Trump and was supportive of his congresswoman daughter Liz, who had backed Trump’s second impeachment following the storming of the US Capitol on January 6 2021.
He supported Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s election.
In a statement, George W. Bush said Cheney was one of the finest public servants of his generation and “a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence and seriousness of purpose to every position he held”.
