Former US Vice President Cheney dies, aged 84

AZERTAC, Philippine News Agency

By Image from the U.S. Air Force website, but likely made by office of the President. -http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/060413-F-0000J-011.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=177837814

BAKU – Former US Vice President Dick Cheney, a key architect of George W Bush’s “war on terror” and an early advocate of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, has died at the age of 84, BBC reported.

He died from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease on Monday night, his family said.

Cheney served as President Gerald Ford’s White House chief of staff in the 1970s, before later becoming one of the most powerful US vice presidents in history under Bush.

In his later years, he became a bitter critic of the Republican party under the leadership of Donald Trump.

“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.

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

He went on to gain a Master’s degree in political science from the University of Wyoming.

His first taste of Washington came in 1968.

Cheney became chief of staff under Ford when he was just 34, before spending a decade in the House of Representatives.

As secretary of defense under George Bush Sr., he presided over the Pentagon during the 1990-1991 Gulf War, in which a US-led coalition evicted Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

He then became VP to George W Bush in 2001 and played a greater role in making major policy decisions than most of his predecessors.