|
Listen now
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Dick Cheney, George W. Bush’s vice president from 2001 to 2009, has died. He was 84.
“The former vice president died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease,” according to a family statement released early Tuesday.
His wife, Lynne, and daughters Liz and Mary as well as other relatives were with him when he died on Monday night, the family said.
Cheney’s campaign for a military response to the 9/11 terror attacks, embodied the single-minded determination to do whatever was necessary to prevent further acts of terrorism on US soil.
A veteran of three previous presidential administrations, including a stint as secretary of defense for Bush’s father, he was given wide berth and deference on the military issues that dominated Bush’s tenure, accumulating influence rarely seen in a vice president.
President George H.W. Bush selected Cheney to be secretary of defense in 1989 after the Senate voted not to confirm his first choice, John Tower. During his four years in charge at the Pentagon, Cheney helped direct the US invasion of Panama to capture its then-president, Manuel Noriega, as well as the rout of Iraqi forces in the 1991 Gulf War.
The younger Bush was governor of Texas and on his way to the Republican presidential nomination in April 2000 when he asked Cheney to head his search for a vice presidential running mate. Bush later said he had Cheney in mind for the job the whole time.
Over the course of his life, Cheney suffered five heart attacks starting in 1978, and had the fourth one in November 2000, as Bush’s election hinged on a recount in Florida.
A defibrillator was implanted in his chest in June 2001 to control episodes of rapid heartbeats. He revealed in his memoir that, two months after taking office, he “took the extraordinary step of writing a letter of resignation as vice president,” to be delivered should he become medically incapacitated.
In March 2012, following 20 months on a waiting list, he received a heart transplant.
Cheney helped shape the Bush administration’s agenda on early priorities such as tax cuts and energy policy, often steering the White House toward textbook conservative principles rather than the more centrist “compassionate conservative” idea that Bush had campaigned on.
In 2003, Cheney worked discreetly with Republican allies in Congress to implement a capital gains tax cut that Bush had intentionally omitted from his tax legislation.
Follow the MoneyCentral Nigeria channel on WhatsApp: Click here!
