(The Epoch Times)—Dick Cheney, who served as vice president under George W. Bush and was a driving force behind the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, has died at 84, his family announced on Nov. 4.
Cheney died Monday night from complications of pneumonia and heart and vascular disease, according to a family statement. He battled heart disease for much of his life, suffering his first heart attack at 37 and receiving a heart transplant in 2012.
A former Wyoming congressman and defense secretary, Cheney was already a powerful Washington insider when Bush chose him as his running mate in 2000. As vice president from 2001 to 2009, he pushed to expand presidential authority and made the vice presidency one of the most influential offices in modern history.
Cheney was a leading advocate for invading Iraq, arguing that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction—claims later disproved. To many, Cheney symbolized how America’s response to the 9/11 terror attack—shaped by faulty intelligence—turned Iraq from a rapid conquest into a grinding, bloody war.
Until his death, Cheney stood by his record, saying he did what was necessary after the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 2,800 people and set off two decades of divisive wars.
“It was the right thing to do then,” Cheney told CNN in 2015 regarding the Iraq invasion.
“I believed it then, and I believe it now.”
His daughter Liz Cheney followed him into politics, serving in Congress until she lost her seat after voting to impeach President Donald Trump. Cheney supported her stance and later said he would vote for the Democratic presidential candidate—then-Vice President Kamala Harris— in 2024, calling Trump “a greater threat to our republic” than any other individual in U.S. history.
Before his vice presidency, Cheney served as defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, overseeing the 1991 Gulf War. As vice president, his influence and unapologetic hawkishness earned him both admiration and criticism—and even the nickname “Darth Vader,” which he once jokingly embraced.
Cheney is survived by his wife of 61 years, Lynne, and their daughters, Liz and Mary.
In their statement, Cheney’s family described him as “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,” the family wrote.
“And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”
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“Every time one of these mass murderers dies without having faced any consequence for the massacres they ordered, the lives they destroyed, the societies they razed to the ground… I realize how far we are from a world with justice. Rest in hell Dick Cheney. Your legacy is death,” wrote Eman Abdelhadi, a columnist for In These Times.”
Political commentator Hasan Piker wrote on X, “genuinely one of the most evil people to exist in modern history, i cannot stress this enough. he got zero punishment for his actions. caused incalculable harm to entire regions. millions killed, tens of millions displaced and he got to pass away quietly surrounded by family.”
Journalist Caitlin Johnstone wrote on X that Cheney died “far too old and far too free.”