Dick Cheney, Former US Vice President, Dies at 84

Dick Cheney, the former U.S. vice president considered by presidential historians to be one of the most powerful and influential vice presidents in the country's history, has died at the age of 84. His family announced on Tuesday that the cause of death was complications from pneumonia, as well as heart and vascular diseases. Cheney, who was one of the main driving forces behind the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, had a lifelong history of heart problems, suffering his first heart attack at the age of 37, and undergoing a heart transplant in 2012.

A former congressman and secretary of defense from Wyoming, Cheney was already a major political figure in Washington when then-Texas Governor George W. Bush chose him as his vice-presidential running mate in 2000. Serving as vice president from 2001 to 2009, Cheney actively fought to expand presidential power, feeling it had been weakened after the Watergate scandal, which ousted his former boss, Richard Nixon. He also significantly expanded the authority of the vice president's office, creating his own national security team that often operated as a separate power center within the administration.

Cheney was one of the most passionate advocates for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and one of the Bush administration officials who was most vocal in warning about the danger of alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. No such weapons were ever found. He predicted that American forces in Iraq would be "greeted as liberators" and that the deployment of troops would be "relatively quick, in weeks rather than months." Despite the absence of weapons, Cheney insisted in later years that the invasion was the right decision based on the intelligence available at the time.

He also defended the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on terrorism suspects, which included waterboarding and sleep deprivation. Other bodies, including the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a UN special rapporteur, have classified these methods as "torture."

Cheney's daughter, Liz Cheney, also became an influential Republican lawmaker but lost her seat in the House of Representatives for opposing President Donald Trump and voting for his impeachment. Her father, Dick Cheney, agreed with his daughter's position and had stated: "In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump."