Dick Cheney, Powerful and Polarizing Vice President Who Championed Iraq War, Dies at 84

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – Dick Cheney, the quietly forceful and deeply conservative figure who dramatically reshaped the office of the vice presidency, becoming one of the most powerful and polarizing second-in-commands in American history and a primary and unyielding architect of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, has died. He was 84.

The death of Cheney, a man whose long and consequential career placed him at the center of American power across multiple administrations, marks the passing of a defining figure of the post-Cold War and post-9/11 eras.

A family spokesman, Jeremy Adler, confirmed that Cheney died Monday night due to complications from pneumonia and a long history of cardiac and vascular disease, a struggle that he endured for decades even as he wielded immense and often controversial influence on the world stage.

From his early days as a congressional aide to his tenure as Secretary of Defense during the first Persian Gulf War and his transformative eight years as Vice President, Cheney was a formidable and often feared presence in Washington, a master of the levers of power who operated with a combination of deep conviction, strategic secrecy, and a famously hard-line worldview.

In his final years, he improbably re-emerged as a fierce and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, a twist that saw the once-reviled icon of the Republican establishment find common cause with his former Democratic adversaries.

Cheney's career was a remarkable ascent through the ranks of the Republican party, a journey that saw him serve two presidents with the same surname but in vastly different capacities.

He first reached the pinnacle of appointed power as the defense chief under President George H.W. Bush, where he led the Pentagon during the successful 1990-91 Persian Gulf War that expelled Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces from Kuwait. 

After a period in the private sector, he returned to public life in 2000, selected by George W. Bush to be his running mate, a choice that would profoundly alter the nature of the vice presidency.

In the younger Bush's administration, Cheney was far more than a ceremonial figurehead; he was, as described by The Associated Press, "in effect, the chief operating officer" of the presidency. He carved out a role of unprecedented influence, with a hand, often a commanding one, in nearly every major policy decision, from energy and presidential powers to, most fatefully, the response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

It was in the shadow of 9/11 that Cheney's hawkish and uncompromising vision of American power came to its fullest and most controversial expression. He became the leading and most relentless advocate for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a war he championed with a conviction that never wavered, even as its premises unraveled and its consequences spiraled.

He consistently and forcefully defended the extraordinary and often legally dubious tools employed in the "war on terror," from warrantless surveillance and indefinite detention to the harsh interrogation techniques that critics decried as torture.

His public justifications for the Iraq War proved to be a litany of errors. He alleged links between the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein's regime that did not exist. He confidently predicted that U.S. troops would be "welcomed as liberators," a hope that was quickly dashed by a bloody and protracted insurgency.

In May 2005, with over 1,600 U.S. service members already killed, he famously declared that the insurgency was in its "last throes," a statement that would be tragically contradicted by the years of violence that followed. Yet, through it all, Cheney never lost the conviction that he was, in essence, right. For his admirers, he was a figure of unwavering resolve in a time of national peril; for his detractors, he was the architect of a catastrophic and costly foreign policy disaster.

As the war in Iraq soured and other hawks departed the administration, Cheney's influence began to wane. Courts pushed back against the expansive view of presidential authority that he championed, and President Bush did not fully embrace his hard-line positions on other adversaries like Iran and North Korea.

Cheney's reputation was also defined by a deep and abiding penchant for secrecy and a notoriously thin skin. He operated for much of the time from undisclosed locations in the months after the 9/11 attacks, a security measure to ensure continuity of government.

Yet, this secrecy also fueled a public image of a shadowy and manipulative figure, a perception he sometimes seemed to relish. "Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?" he once asked. "It's a nice way to operate, actually."

This image was not helped by a bizarre and widely publicized incident in 2006, when he accidentally shot a hunting companion, his friend Harry Whittington, in the face, neck, and torso with a shotgun. The slow and secretive manner in which his office handled the disclosure of the event fueled days of media frenzy and relentless jokes from late-night comedians.

Politics first drew Dick Cheney to Washington in 1968.

He became a protégé of Donald Rumsfeld and rose quickly, becoming the youngest-ever White House chief of staff at age 34 under President Gerald Ford. He then returned to his home state of Wyoming, winning the state's single congressional seat despite suffering a mild heart attack during his first campaign. He went on to win five more terms, rising to become the No. 2 Republican in the House leadership.

In his final years, Cheney's political journey took an unexpected and dramatic turn. He and his family, particularly his daughter Liz Cheney, who had won his old House seat, became leading critics of President Donald Trump.

 After Liz Cheney was ousted from her House leadership position and lost her seat for her relentless opposition to Trump and her lead role on the committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, her father became one of her most vocal defenders.

In a television ad for his daughter's campaign, Dick Cheney delivered a stunning rebuke of the sitting Republican president. “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 declared. “He is a coward.”

The transformation was complete when, in a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney announced last year that he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against Trump.

Throughout his long and often tumultuous career, Cheney lived with the constant reality of his own mortality. He survived five heart attacks, the first during his initial run for Congress, and in his post-administration years, he underwent a heart transplant.

He once disclosed that he had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off while in office, a stark illustration of the era, for fear that terrorists might attempt to remotely assassinate him by sending a fatal shock to his heart.

He is survived by his wife, Lynne, and their two daughters, Liz and Mary. Dick Cheney leaves behind a complex and deeply contested legacy, a man whose quiet demeanor belied a will of iron and a vision of American power that fundamentally reshaped the nation and the world, for better and for worse.