Dick Cheney dies after powerful VP career under Bush. Live updates.

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After his two terms as vice president ended in 2009, Dick Cheney became one of the nation's most prominent Republicans to oppose President Donald Trump.

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• Former Vice President Dick Cheney, an architect of the Iraq war, has died at 84.
• Cheney was one of the most powerful vice presidents in United States history.
• Under President George W. Bush, Cheney pushed for the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on what was later proven to be false evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
• Cheney, an old-guard Republican, supported Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign but later turned against him. Cheney voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, his daughter said.

WASHINGTON ‒ Dick Cheney, one of the most powerful vice presidents in United States history, a chief architect of the war in Iraq and a member of an old Republican Party guard that is quickly fading away, died Monday night.

Cheney, whose death was confirmed by a statement from the Cheney family, was 84.

Cheney helped lead the push under President George W. Bush to invade Iraq based on intelligence ‒ later proven wrong ‒ that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction.

"Dick was a calm and steady presence in the White House amid great national challenges," Bush said in a statement. "I counted on him for his honest, forthright counsel, and he never failed to give his best."

The Iraq war took the lives of an estimated 200,000 Iraqi civilians and 4,492 U.S. servicemembers, and cost more than $700 billion.

'Big Time' to his president, 'Darth Vader' to his enemies

Cheney was a hawkish, deeply partisan figure with broad knowledge of government and few qualms about the use of executive power. Bush nicknamed him "Vice" and "Big Time." His opponents called him "Darth Vader."

With a wealth of experience far eclipsing that of Bush, a former Texas governor, Cheney's critics potrayed him as the driving force behind controversial security policies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. These included "enhanced interrogation techniques" of detainees seized during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which investigators said amounted to torture.

"He held to his convictions and prioritized the freedom and security of the American people," Bush said.

Tapped by Bush as his 2000 running mate for his decades of Washington experience, Cheney became a top target of Bush critics for the enormous role he played in shaping the administration's foreign policy.

A Republican congressman from Wyoming in the 1980s and Defense secretary for the elder President George H.W. Bush, Cheney's first prominent role in Washington was as deputy chief of staff and later White House chief of staff for President Gerald Ford.

"As a young White House aide and chief of staff, a Congressman, a Secretary of Defense, and my Vice President, Dick earned the confidence and high opinion of five presidents," Bush said. "I asked him to join my ticket in 2000 after first enlisting him to help me find the best running mate. In our long discussions about the qualities a vice president should have - deep experience, mature judgment, character, loyalty - I realized that Dick Cheney was the one I needed."

Cheney family opposed Donald Trump

After his two terms as vice president ended in 2009, Cheney became one of the nation's most prominent Republicans to oppose Donald Trump. Along with his daughter, Liz Cheney, a former congresswoman, Dick Cheney said that he voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

"There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump," Cheney said before the election, which Trump won. Cheney supported Trump's successful 2016 campaign.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on Cheney's death.

What happened in Dick Cheney's hunting accident?

Around sundown on Feb. 11, 2006, then-Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot his hunting partner, prominent Austin attorney Harry Whittington, while searching for quail on a Texas ranch.

As a covey of quail were flushed from a field, Whittington inadvertently got too close and failed to announce his presence. Cheney fired a 28-guage shotgun, peppering Whittington's face, neck and chest with bird shot.

The hunting accident, first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, part of the USA TODAY Network, made national headlines and gained renewed attention amid the 2018 release of the movie, "Vice," in which Christian Bale portrays Cheney.

-- N'Dea Yancey-Bragg

Dick Cheney died of complications of pneumonia, cardiac and vascular disease, family says

Cheney died due to complications of pneumonia as well as cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement released by the former vice president's family.

His wife Lynne Cheney, daughters Liz Cheney and Mary Cheney, and other loved ones were with him when he died, the statement said.

His family reflected on his decades of public service and his private life as a father and grandfather in the statement confirming his death.

"Dick Cheney was 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," his family said in a statement. "We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man."

Cheney's evolution: From college dropout to most powerful vice president in American history

He was the most powerful and the most controversial vice president in American history.

Richard Bruce Cheney was a laconic one-time college dropout who found his place in Washington, moving to the capital as a congressional fellow and rising in short order to become White House chief of staff for President Gerald Ford, a Wyoming congressman in the House Republican leadership and wartime secretary of Defense for the elder President George H.W. Bush.

Then, for eight years as vice president for the younger President George W. Bush, Cheney acted as no second-in-command had before — directing the presidential transition, devising policy on energy and leading a concerted administration effort to restore and expand executive authority from what he saw as congressional incursion. Read more.

Follow along for live updates as the nation marks Cheney's death.

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