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Former US Vice President Dick Cheney dies at 84
Dick Cheney served as Vice President to US President George W. Bush during his two-term stint in the White House.
Dick Cheney, one of the most powerful and polarising vice presidents of US history, has died, news reports said on Tuesday morning (local time). He was 84.
Cheney died Monday night due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family.
“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. 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,” the statement said.
Cheney served as Vice President to US President George W. Bush during his two-term stint in the White House, from January 2001 to January 2009. He also served in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, Junior Bush's father, leading the armed forces as the defence chief during the Persian Gulf War.
Dick Cheney redefined the Vice Presidency
His term as the vice president was defined by the age of terrorism in the aftermath of the deadly 9/11 attacks that shook the entire world. Cheney disclosed that he had had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear that terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock.
In his time in the Number One, Obersevatory Circle, the vice presidency was no longer merely a ceremonial afterthought. Instead, Cheney made it a network of back channels from which to influence policy on Iraq, terrorism, presidential powers, energy and other cornerstones of a conservative agenda.
The Donald Trump criticism
Years after leaving office, Dick Cheney became a target of President Donald Trump, especially after his daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Trump's attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the January 6 riot in 2021 at the US Capitol building in Washington, DC.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. 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,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter.
In a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against Trump.
