Former US Vice President, Dick Cheney, is dead
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, long regarded as one of America’s most powerful and controversial political figures, has died at 84, his family announced. He passed away from complications related to pneumonia and heart disease, surrounded by his wife, Lynne, and daughters, Liz and Mary.
In a family statement, they described Cheney as “a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love their country and live with courage, honor, and kindness.”
Cheney, who served as the 46th Vice President under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009, was widely seen as the chief strategist behind the U.S. “War on Terror” and the Iraq invasion—a conflict later criticized for being based on faulty intelligence. His formidable influence in Washington earned him both deep respect and lasting controversy.
Former President George W. Bush called him “a decent, honorable man” and “one of the finest public servants of his generation.”
Though a lifelong conservative, Cheney in later years became estranged from his own party for his fierce denunciation of Donald Trump, whom he called “a coward” and “the greatest threat to the republic.” In a final act of political irony, he reportedly cast his last presidential vote in 2024 for Democrat Kamala Harris, signaling his disillusionment with the modern GOP.
A survivor of multiple heart attacks, Cheney lived vigorously after a 2012 heart transplant, which he once described as “the gift of life itself.”
Before the vice presidency, he served as a Wyoming congressman, White House chief of staff, and defense secretary, later returning from a successful corporate career to become Bush’s running mate—a choice he initially helped vet.
Cheney was inside the White House on September 11, 2001, when the second plane hit the World Trade Center. The moment, he later recalled, “changed everything,” forging his resolve to reshape U.S. defense and foreign policy with an aggressive, preemptive doctrine against terrorism.
While many viewed him as the dominant force behind America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, historical accounts note that President Bush remained “The Decider”—the ultimate authority in an administration forever marked by the choices both men made in the wake of 9/11.
