Dick Cheney, the hard-charging conservative who became one of the most powerful and polarising vice presidents in US history and a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq, has died at age 84. The quietly forceful Cheney served father and son presidents, leading the armed forces as defence chief during the Persian Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush before returning to public life as vice president under Bush’s son, George W. Bush. Cheney was, in effect, the chief operating officer of the younger Bush’s presidency. He had a hand, often a commanding one, in implementing decisions most important to the president and some of surpassing interest to himself — all while living with decades of heart disease and, post-administration, a heart transplant. Cheney consistently defended the extraordinary tools of surveillance, detention and inquisition employed in response to the terrorist attacks of September.
