Former Vice President Dick Cheney, a drive in Republican politics for over 30 years and one of the crucial highly effective individuals to carry the second-highest workplace within the U.S., has died. He was 84.
In a press release, Cheney’s household mentioned he died Monday evening of issues of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular illness, surrounded by his spouse of 61 years, Lynne, daughters Liz and Mary and different members of the family.
Earlier than turning into vice chairman within the George W. Bush administration, Cheney served as protection secretary, White Home chief of workers and a Wyoming congressman.
David Hume Kennerly / Getty Photographs
Within the assertion, his household known as Cheney “a terrific and good man who taught his kids and grandchildren to like our nation, and to reside lives of braveness, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing. We’re grateful past measure to have liked and been liked by this noble large of a person.”
In 2000, Cheney was requested by Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, to assist decide his working mate. In the long run, it was Cheney’s personal identify that topped the listing. He would, it was believed, present gravitas and broad Washington expertise for the youthful Texas governor.
“He actually needed me to return on board as a result of he thought I may assist govern, be a part of his staff, and that he needed me concerned in every part,” Cheney informed CBS’ “60 Minutes II.”
He was seen as one of the crucial highly effective vice presidents in U.S. historical past; on the similar time, he turned a lightning rod for individuals who opposed the warfare in Iraq and the growth of presidential powers.
In a press release, Bush known as Cheney a “calm and regular presence within the White Home amid nice nationwide challenges.”
“I counted on him for his sincere, forthright counsel, and he by no means failed to offer his finest,” Bush mentioned. “He held to his convictions and prioritized the liberty and safety of the American individuals. For these two phrases in workplace, and all through his exceptional profession, Dick Cheney’s service all the time mirrored credit score on the nation he liked.”
In recent times, Cheney noticed his daughter Liz Cheney obtain political prominence as a Wyoming GOP consultant in Congress recognized for her open criticism of President Trump. She misplaced her place as the highest Republican lady within the Home over her combat with Mr. Trump about his baseless claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him. She went on to function vice chair of the Home choose committee investigating the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and continued to warn of the hazard that she mentioned Mr. Trump posed to democracy, even campaigning for his Democratic opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, in 2024.
Dick Cheney minimize an advert for his daughter’s failed 2022 reelection marketing campaign backing her place, arguing that in U.S. historical past “there has by no means been a person that was a better menace to our republic than Donald Trump.”
Cheney formed Republican Social gathering politics for a technology, however he solid his ultimate presidential poll in 2024 for a Democrat. In a press release, he mentioned Mr. Trump “can by no means be trusted with energy once more. As residents, we every have an obligation to place nation above partisanship to defend our Structure.”
Adolescence and rise to energy
Richard Bruce Cheney was born in 1941 in Lincoln, Nebraska, and grew up in Wyoming. He attended Yale however dropped out after two years and as a substitute completed his school training on the College of Wyoming. Cheney married his high-school sweetheart Lynne, with whom he had two daughters.
He then moved to Washington, D.C., to start his profession, having prevented the draft and the Vietnam Battle with deferments starting in early 1966 as a result of it took him six years to complete school, he later testified earlier than Congress at a affirmation listening to.
By age 34, he was White Home chief of workers for President Gerald Ford, the youngest individual ever to carry the job.
In 1978, he ran for Congress and received the primary of six phrases within the Home, representing Wyoming. In 1989, he was chosen to be secretary of protection within the administration of President George H.W. Bush.
In 1991, he oversaw the U.S. victory within the first Gulf Battle, when Iraqi forces had been pushed out of Kuwait. For years afterwards, he defended the choice to not invade Baghdad.
“If we had gone on to Baghdad, if we had kind of accepted the duty for occupying the nation, governing Iraq, placing a brand new authorities in place, working Saddam to floor, I feel there would have been vital extra U.S. casualties,” Cheney mentioned on CBS’ “Face the Nation” in 1992. “I am unable to say what number of, however the proposition is what number of extra American lives is Saddam Hussein price? And my reply to that query is, not very darn many.”
In 1995, Cheney turned chairman and CEO of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil area providers firm, his first company job. His wage and inventory choices made him a multimillionaire. However in 2000 he left the corporate to affix the Republican ticket.
“This election is about actual decisions — we’re speaking about the way forward for our nation,” Cheney mentioned at a 2000 post-debate rally in Kentucky.
The presidential marketing campaign was bitterly contested and its final result was undecided on election evening, with Florida too near name, although Bush had a slight lead. Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, requested for recounts in 4 counties, as Bush sued to cease the recounts. The race was finally determined 5 weeks after the election by a 5-4 choice of the Supreme Courtroom.
A turning level in historical past
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults on america proved to be the defining second for the brand new administration — notably, it appeared, for Cheney. Even because the U.S. struck al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan, Cheney warned of a bigger net of U.S. enemies, urging army motion in opposition to Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
“Merely acknowledged, there is no such thing as a doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,” Cheney informed the Veterans of International Wars in 2002.
Baghdad fell solely three weeks after the U.S. invasion in 2003. No weapons of mass destruction had been ever discovered, and American forces started an extended, lethal occupation.
Even so, the Bush-Cheney staff made nationwide safety the centerpiece of the 2004 presidential marketing campaign.
“If we make the improper selection, the hazard is that we’ll get hit once more,” Cheney mentioned at a city corridor assembly in Des Moines, Iowa.
The president and Cheney had been returned to workplace in a detailed election.
However because the scenario in Iraq disintegrated and U.S. casualties mounted, public opinion turned in opposition to the battle and the administration.
In November 2006, Democrats received majorities in each homes of Congress, swept in primarily by anti-war sentiment.
To his many detractors, Cheney was a person obsessive about secrecy, the specter of terrorism and strengthening presidential energy.
Cheney and Bush ignored the critics.
However in his second time period, the president broke with Cheney on the firing of Protection Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the supply of talks to North Korea, and the refusal of a pardon for Cheney’s former chief of workers, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was convicted in 2007 of mendacity to a grand jury however finally pardoned by President Trump in 2018.
On the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama, Cheney appeared in a wheelchair due to a again damage. However the former vice chairman proved to be as pugnacious as ever in frequent assaults on the brand new president and his administration. “I feel Barack Obama is a one-term president,” Cheney mentioned on the Conservative Political Motion Convention in 2010.
Coronary heart transplant brings “a brand new day”
Cheney’s cardiovascular well being was an issue all through his life. He suffered a complete of 5 coronary heart assaults, his first at age 37 throughout his run for Congress.
In 2010, after his fifth, medical doctors implanted a battery-powered system to assist his coronary heart pump blood all through his physique. That purchased Cheney time whereas he awaited a coronary heart transplant, which he acquired in 2012.
“You get up each morning with a smile in your face,” he informed 60 Minutes in 2013, “since you’ve obtained a brand new day you by no means anticipated to have.”
