Washington: Dick Cheney, who became one of the most powerful vice presidents in US history as George W. Bush’s number two during 9/11 and catastrophic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, died Monday. He was 84.
Cheney forged an influential role in the traditionally inconsequential job and was a major power behind the throne as Bush thrust America into the so-called war on terror, with a dark underbelly of renditions, torture and the Guantanamo prison site. A hate-figure to many on the left, he made a remarkable pivot toward the end of his life when he opposed Donald Trump’s ultimately successful campaign to return to the White House in 2024.
Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney, a former congresswoman from Wyoming, said her deeply Republican father had voted for Trump’s Democratic opponent Kamala Harris.
Cheney, also a former congressman and defense secretary, “died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease,” according to a family statement.
As 46th vice president, Cheney served for two terms between 2001 and 2009.
The job is often frustrating for ambitious politicians, but Cheney’s Machiavellian skills gave him considerable sway.
He helped usher in an aggressive notion of executive power, believing the president should be able to operate almost unfettered by lawmakers or the courts, particularly during wartime.
It was an approach that saw Bush enter military quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, and prompt major controversy over his impact on civil liberties.
Bush on Tuesday hailed his former vice president as “among the finest public servants of his generation” and “the one I needed” when in the White House.
Cheney was “a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence and seriousness of purpose to every position he held,” Bush added.
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on January 30, 1941, Cheney grew up mostly in the sparsely populated western state of Wyoming.
He attended Yale University but dropped out of the prestigious East Coast school and ended up earning a degree in political science back home at the University of Wyoming.
He spent ten years in Congress as a representative for Wyoming before being appointed defense secretary by George H.W. Bush in 1989.