Dick Cheney, former US vice president and architect of the post-9/11 war on terror, dies at 84

Former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney (2001–2009) has died at the age of 84, his family said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Cheney, who served as George W. Bush’s number two, was regarded as the chief architect and driving force behind the U.S. “war on terror” launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

According to the family, Cheney died from complications related to pneumonia and ongoing heart and vascular problems. He was surrounded by his wife, Lynne, and their daughters, Liz and Mary. “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 family statement read.

Considered one of the most powerful vice presidents in U.S. history, Cheney — representing the hardline faction of the post-9/11 administration known as the “hawks” of American foreign policy — had in recent years become, paradoxically, a staunch critic of current President Donald Trump, whom he called a “coward” and “the greatest ever threat to our republic.”

During the campaign leading up to the election that brought the New York magnate to power a year ago, Cheney said he would cast his vote for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

With Cheney as vice president — he was the strongman of George W. Bush’s two terms — the United States invaded two countries in response to the deaths of more than 3,000 people in the Al Qaeda attacks on 9/11.

The first was Afghanistan, on October 7, 2001. Two years later, on March 20, 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq. In Iraq, which the U.S. attacked after falsely linking Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, to 9/11, Cheney became a central figure in controversy. This was due to contracts signed in the country by Halliburton, the company he had led before joining the White House under Bush.

During that period, Cheney clashed with several of Bush’s top advisers, including secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and defended the so-called “enhanced interrogation” techniques for terrorism suspects, which included simulated drowning and sleep deprivation.

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights labeled these techniques as “torture.”

His daughter, Liz Cheney, also became an influential Republican legislator, serving in the House of Representatives, but lost her seat after opposing Trump and voting for his removal following the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by his supporters.

However, the vice presidency was not Cheney’s first government role with the Bush family. From 1989 to 1993, he served as secretary of defense under George H. W. Bush. It was in this position that he oversaw the U.S. military intervention in the Persian Gulf in 1991.

Born in 1941 in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney built an extensive public career. Before reaching high government posts, he served as a congressman for Wyoming and later as White House chief of staff under president Gerald Ford.

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