Dick Cheney Dies at 84
The Vice President Who Led America into Its Longest War
The architect of the Iraq invasion leaves behind a legacy of questionable intelligence, expanded executive power, and hundreds of thousands dead
November 4, 2025
Dick Cheney, who died Monday night at age 84 from complications of pneumonia and longstanding heart disease, will be remembered as the most powerful vice president in American history and one of the most controversial. His eight years in the Bush administration reshaped U.S. foreign policy, expanded executive authority to unprecedented levels, and launched a war that destabilized an entire region.
The Road to Baghdad
Cheney was the principal architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a decision built on claims that later proved catastrophically wrong. In the lead-up to war, he made repeated public assertions that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and maintained ties to Al-Qaeda.
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,” Cheney declared in August 2002. He claimed Iraq had “reconstituted nuclear weapons” and that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague—a meeting that never occurred.
None of it was true.
The weapons were never found. The nuclear program didn’t exist. The Al-Qaeda connection was fabricated. Yet these claims, delivered with Cheney’s trademark certitude, helped convince Congress and the American public to support an invasion that would claim hundreds of thousands of lives and cost trillions of dollars.
A Devastating Human Toll
The Iraq War’s death toll remains disputed, but even conservative estimates are grim. The Iraq Body Count project documented more than 200,000 civilian deaths. The Lancet medical journal estimated excess deaths including those caused by infrastructure collapse, disease, and displacement at more than 600,000 by 2006. Millions more were displaced or became refugees.
American losses included nearly 4,500 service members killed and over 32,000 wounded. The war’s total cost exceeded $2 trillion, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The conflict’s destabilizing effects reshaped the region. The decision to disband the Iraqi army, which Cheney supported, left hundreds of thousands of armed men jobless many of whom joined the insurgency. The resulting power vacuum paved the way for ISIS, which at its peak controlled territory the size of Great Britain and carried out terrorist attacks worldwide.
“The Dark Side”
Cheney didn’t just advocate for war; he redefined how America fought it. In the days after 9/11, he said the U.S. would need to work “the dark side” and use “any means at our disposal.” He meant it.
Under his influence, the CIA established secret prisons where detainees were subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” widely recognized as torture under international law. Waterboarding, stress positions, and sleep deprivation were all authorized at the highest levels. The Senate Intelligence Committee later documented these practices in a damning 6,000-page report.
Cheney also pushed for warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens, bypassing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. When the program was exposed, he showed no remorse. He championed indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo Bay, where dozens of men remain imprisoned today.
Never a Doubt
Perhaps most striking was Cheney’s refusal to acknowledge error. In countless interviews after leaving office, he defended every decision insisting the intelligence on Iraq was sound, that waterboarding wasn’t torture, and that his administration’s actions were justified.
“I feel very good about what we did,” he told Fox News in 2008. “If I was faced with those circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing.”
This unwavering stance stood in contrast to other Iraq War supporters who later admitted the invasion was a mistake. Cheney never did. Even as the war’s rationale collapsed and its human cost mounted, he remained defiant.
A Complicated Legacy
Cheney’s defenders will point to his decades of service, congressman, White House chief of staff, defense secretary during the Gulf War, and CEO of Halliburton. They’ll argue he believed he was protecting America in its darkest hour.
But history’s judgment is likely to be unforgiving. Cheney helped lead a nation into a preventive war based on faulty intelligence. He expanded executive power in ways that eroded constitutional checks and balances. He normalized practices that blurred the line between democracy and authoritarianism.
When he left office in 2009, his approval rating was just 13 percent, among the lowest ever recorded for a vice president. The wars he set in motion dragged on for years after his departure, and the precedents he established continue to shape U.S. policy on surveillance, detention, and executive authority.
Dick Cheney believed he was making America safer. Instead, he led it into one of the most disastrous foreign policy decisions in modern history, a decision whose consequences are still felt across the Middle East today. That will be his enduring legacy.
Richard Bruce Cheney, born January 30, 1941, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Died November 3, 2025, in McLean, Virginia. He is survived by his wife Lynne, daughters Elizabeth and Mary, and seven grandchildren.