Dick Cheney’s death is a loss to the nation, says George W. Bush

Former US President George W. Bush paid tribute to Dick Cheney, saying his death was “a loss to the nation and a sorrow to his friends”.

Cheney died of complications from pneumonia and cardiovascular disease Monday night aged 84, his family said in a statement.

He became one of the most powerful US vice presidents in history under Bush and leaves behind a controversial legacy as a key architect of the “war on terror” and an early advocate of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“History will remember him as one of the finest public servants of his generation,” Bush said in a statement.

Cheney was “a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence and seriousness of purpose to every position he held,” Bush added.

“I relied on him for his honest, forthright advice, and he never failed to give his best. He stood by his convictions and put the freedom and security of the American people first.”

Condoleezza Rice, who served as secretary of state with Cheney in the Bush administration, said she admired him “for his integrity and his love for our country.”

“He was an inspiring presence and mentor who taught me a lot about public service,” she wrote to X.

Although a stalwart in the Republican Party for many years, Cheney has become a fierce critic under Donald Trump, who has yet to comment on his death.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “The scriptures are very clear, we give honor where honor is due.”

“Even when we had political differences as someone later in life, you have to honor the sacrifices and the service they gave to their country,” he said.

White House flags were flown at half-staff Tuesday morning shortly after his death was announced.

In a statement announcing his death, Cheney’s family said he was “a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country and live a life of courage, honor, love, kindness and fly fishing.”

Cheney was a controversial political figure, particularly in his role behind the “war on terror” in which the US invaded Iraq after the 9/11 attacks.

Iraqi writer Sinan Antun said Cheney’s lasting legacy in the country was “chaos and terrorism”.

“In a different world, Dick Cheney would definitely have been a war criminal and he would have been brought to justice,” he told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

Christopher Goldsmith, a US Army veteran who was deployed to Iraq, also told the BBC that “most people recognize Dick Cheney as the man who created a huge problem that ended up with hundreds of thousands of deaths.”

Richard “Dick” Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1941 and later attended the prestigious Yale University on a scholarship, but failed to graduate.

He then earned a master’s degree in political science from the University of Wyoming.

His first taste of Washington came in 1968 when he worked for William Steiger, a young Republican representative from Wisconsin.

Cheney became Gerald Ford’s chief of staff in 1975 when he was just 34 before spending a decade in the House of Representatives.

As defense secretary under George W. Bush, he presided over the Pentagon during the 1990-91 Gulf War, in which a US-led coalition drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

He became George W. Bush’s vice president in 2001 and played a larger role in making major policy decisions than most of his predecessors.

It is for this role that he will be remembered best and most controversially.

During the younger Bush administration, he single-handedly transformed his role as vice president from what was traditionally a vacant role with few formal powers into a de facto vice president overseeing American foreign policy and national security after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

He was a leading advocate of American military action in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

On the eve of the invasion of Iraq, Cheney said that Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed so-called weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons were never found during the military campaign.

He has also repeatedly claimed ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda, the terrorist group led by Osama bin Laden that claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. He said the attackers would incur the “full wrath” of American military might.

Cheney’s key role in the campaign greatly affected his political legacy after the US took years to extricate itself from a costly war in Iraq that left hundreds of thousands dead.

His political career later became the subject of a major feature film in 2018’s Vice, with actor Christian Bale winning a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the former vice president.

Cheney had numerous heart problems throughout his life.

He suffered the first of many heart attacks in 1978 when he was only 37 years old. At the time, Cheney was running for a seat in the House of Representatives — and smoking three packs of cigarettes a day.

In 2010, he underwent surgery to install a small heart pump to try to combat “increasing congestive heart failure”.

By this time, he had already suffered five heart attacks. Two years later, Chaney underwent a full heart transplant.

He is survived by his wife Lynn, daughters Liz and Mary Chaney, and seven grandchildren.

Despite working for Republican presidents for decades, he has become a fierce opponent of President Donald Trump.

After initially supporting him in 2016, Cheney was appalled by allegations of Russian meddling in the presidential election and Trump’s seemingly casual attitude toward NATO.

He supported his older daughter Liz when she became the leading “never Trump” Republican in the House of Representatives – and condemned the refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election.

Two months before last year’s US presidential election, Cheney staged a major intervention: announcing that he would vote for Kamala Harris of the Democrats.

He said that “there has never been a person who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”

In return, Trump called Cheney an “irrelevant RINO,” an acronym that stands for “Republican in Name Only.”

In his later years, Cheney would become persona non grata in his own party, which had been remade in Trump’s image.

In a strange final twist, his own criticism of Trump — and endorsement of Harris — will earn him praise from some on the left who once vilified him decades earlier.