Cheney was vice president to George W. Bush for the duration of Bush’s presidency from 2001, and 2009, having previously served as defence secretary to Bush’s father, George HW Bush, and chief of staff to president Gerald Ford (the youngest White House chief of staff in history), among other roles.
George W. Bush said history would remember Cheney as “among the finest public servants of his generation – a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence and seriousness of purpose to every position he held”.
Former vice president Dick Cheney, speaking in 2008, did not resile from his positions in the war on terrorism and invasion of Iraq.Credit: AP
“Dick was a calm and steady presence in the White House amid great national challenges. I counted on him for his honest, forthright counsel, and he never failed to give his best,” Bush said. “He held to his convictions and prioritised the freedom and security of the American people.”
Condoleezza Rice, who was secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, said Cheney was a mentor and friend whom she admired for his integrity and love of country.
“As vice president, he helped to chart a course to protect America after the dark days of 9/11,” she said. “He was indefatigable in his determination to defend this country and patriotic to his core.”
Long-serving Republican senator Mitch McConnell, who until this year led the party in the Senate, said Cheney combined “immense organisational competence, far-sighted vision and sheer force of will” in a way rarely seen.
Mitch McConnell, left, and Dick Cheney, third from left, as George W. Bush signs proclamations following his inauguration in 2001.Credit: AP
“Dick Cheney served with a profound and humble appreciation for the rules, principles, and institutions that sustain America’s experiment in self-governance,” McConnell said.
“When terrorists launched a war against America on September 11, 2001, his intellect, experience, and resolve made America safer. As grave threats to our security continue to loom, his commitment to American leadership will remain a lesson.”
Those tributes contrasted starkly with silence from Trump and the most prominent figures in the president’s Make America Great Again movement. Neither Trump nor Vance had commented publicly about Cheney by lunchtime on Tuesday, despite making posts about elections underway in the US.
During last year’s election campaign, Trump feuded with Cheney’s daughter Liz – a former congresswoman who was supporting Kamala Harris – calling her a “radical war hawk”.
Kamala Harris campaigning with former congresswoman Liz Cheney in the swing state of Wisconsin at last year’s election.Credit: AP
Vance, while regarded as a vice president of similar influence to Cheney, comes from an isolationist worldview that is at odds with the military interventionism extolled and practised by Cheney throughout his career.
Cheney’s critics were forthright even in the aftermath of his death. Kenneth Roth, a lawyer and activist who led Human Rights Watch for 30 years until 2022, said Cheney would be remembered for pursuing “an utterly lawless approach” to the war on terror, including torture, forced disappearance and unlimited detention without trial.
Loading
“Dick Cheney managed to live his entire life without being prosecuted for the systematic torture that he ordered as vice president in the George W. Bush administration,” Roth said. “His opposition to Trump doesn’t change this dangerous precedent of impunity.”
Cheney, who predicted a fast and successful military operation in Iraq in 2003, and that US forces would be “greeted as liberators”, did not resile from his positions after the war dragged on and incurred thousands of American casualties.
In 2005, he told CNN: “I think on Iraq we got the big issues right … The vast majority of the Iraqi people are grateful for what we did.”
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
