Dick Cheney, a significant figure within the Republican Party who served as vice president during the presidency of George W. Bush, has died. Cheney, a mainstay in Republican politics for decades, is primarily seen as one of the major driving forces behind the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, as well as the ethically and legally dubious methods of the U.S.-led war on terror.
Longtime Republican political figure
Richard Bruce Cheney served in the administrations of four Republican presidents, including as an aide to economic advisor Donald Rumsfeld in Richard Nixon’s administration and as chief of staff for his successor, Gerald Ford. Cheney also represented Wyoming for a decade as its sole member in the House of Representatives. Cheney left Congress in 1989 to become secretary of defense for President George H.W. Bush. Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led the successful U.S. military effort in the Persian Gulf War against Iraq. Cheney then left public life to serve as CEO of the giant oil services company Halliburton. When George W. Bush became the Republican presidential nominee in 2000, Cheney was chosen to lead the search for his running mate; Cheney took the role himself and became vice president in 2001. Cheney was seen as an experienced and capable counterweight to the younger Bush, who had limited political experience, especially in foreign policy. Bush recruited several of Cheney’s former colleagues to serve in his cabinet, including Rumsfeld and Powell. Critics alleged that Cheney would be a “shadow president,” determining policy from behind the scenes.
Iraq invasion, the war on terror and other controversies
Cheney’s influence came into focus in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The president was famously making a public appearance at an elementary school in Florida when news of the attacks came. Cheney was in the White House and took charge, even issuing an order to shoot down commercial planes if necessary to repel further attacks. After 9/11, Cheney became a leading figure in the neoconservative camp within the Bush administration; the “neocons,” as they were called, advocated an aggressive foreign policy that included overthrowing governments hostile to the U.S. and its interests. Cheney pushed this agenda over the objections of Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Cheney’s policy of regime change was implemented in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Cheney, a leading figure in the 1990s war in Iraq and a former businessman with deep connections to the oil industry, was seen as a leading force in the 2003 invasion and its aftermath, including his advocacy for the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques against terror suspects, which were widely viewed to be torture. That was part of Cheney’s push for an aggressive war on terror, which also set the stage for increased racial profiling and police militarization in the United States. Cheney consistently denied that he intentionally pushed false information to justify the Iraq invasion, and he defended the interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration. Cheney also had more specific scandals, including wounding a hunting partner by accidentally shooting him in the face, as well as an incident in which Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative.
Personal life, politics and Trump
Cheney dealt with heart-related health issues throughout his adult life, ultimately undergoing a heart transplant in 2012. His family said in a statement that Cheney died of complications from pneumonia, as well as cardiac and vascular disease. Cheney, born in 1941 in Lincoln, Nebraska, attended Yale University but dropped out, later earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wyoming-Madison; Cheney also avoided military service during the Vietnam War because of his studies. Cheney married Lynne Vincent, his high school girlfriend. The couple had two daughters: Mary, whose personal life became political fodder when she married her partner, Heather Poe, with support from the Cheneys despite Republican opposition to same-sex marriage; and Elizabeth, who went on to win the congressional seat once held by her father to represent Wyoming in the House of Representatives. Former Congresswoman Cheney became one of the leading Republican voices against Donald Trump, including serving as vice chair of the congressional committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection. The former vice president was generally critical of Democrats; he once referred to former President Barack Obama as “the worst president of my lifetime,” accusing him of being weak on national security issues. However, Cheney, like his daughter, became critical of Trump after January 6 and supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Despite his endorsement of Harris, Cheney remained a villainous political figure in the eyes of many Democrats, who continue to blame him for the death and suffering of the Iraq War and the war on terror. Many Republicans, meanwhile, view him as a leading figure of an administration that engaged in reckless international overreach that harmed U.S. interests and standing in the world. Cheney, despite these controversies, remained unapologetic for his decisions.