Cheney passed away peacefully at his home in McLean, Virginia, surrounded by family, according to a statement released by his office early Wednesday morning. The cause of death was heart failure, following a decades-long battle with cardiovascular disease that included multiple heart attacks, bypass surgeries, and a heart transplant in 2012.
Born January 30, 1941, in Lincoln, Nebraska, Richard Bruce Cheney rose from a Yale dropout turned Wyoming lineman to the pinnacle of American power. A protégé of Donald Rumsfeld during the Nixon administration, he served as White House chief of staff under Gerald Ford, won a House seat in 1978, and climbed to House Republican whip before President George H.W. Bush tapped him as secretary of defense in 1989.
It was as vice president to George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009 that Cheney left his deepest imprint—and sparked enduring controversy. Assuming office amid the Florida recount chaos, he became the steady hand guiding a novice president through the September 11 attacks. In the weeks that followed, Cheney operated from an "undisclosed location," helping craft the legal architecture for the war on terror: enhanced interrogation techniques, warrantless surveillance, and the invasion of Iraq on the premise of weapons of mass destruction that were never found.
Supporters hailed him as the indispensable guardian of American security in an age of asymmetric threats. Critics, including many in his own party, accused him of executive overreach and steering the nation into a trillion-dollar quagmire that cost more than 4,400 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi ones.
"Cheney believed that the post-9/11 world demanded a muscular assertion of American power, and he never apologized for it," said Ari Fleischer, former Bush White House press secretary. "History will debate the costs, but no one can deny his influence."
In retirement, Cheney remained a GOP éminence grise, clashing publicly with Donald Trump over January 6 and endorsing Democratic candidates in 2022 and 2024 to defend constitutional norms. His daughter Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman, carried forward his hawkish legacy while breaking with the MAGA wing that ousted her from leadership.
Cheney is survived by his wife of 61 years, Lynne; daughters Liz and Mary; and seven grandchildren. Funeral services will be private, with a public memorial planned at the National Cathedral next week.
Tributes poured in across the political spectrum. President [incumbent] called Cheney "a consequential figure who served in moments of crisis," while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell praised his "unwavering commitment to American strength."
Yet for millions, the mention of his name still evokes Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and a war without end. As one veteran protester outside the Cheney Institute in Casper, Wyoming, told reporters Wednesday: "He kept us safe, some say. Others say he broke the world."
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