Washington: Dick Cheney, America's most powerful modern vice president and chief architect of the "war on terror," has died, according to a statement from his family. He was 84.
According to Kuwait News Agency, "His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed," the family said, adding that he died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
"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," the family added.
The 46th vice president, who served alongside Republican President George W. Bush for two terms between 2001 and 2009, was for decades a towering and polarizing Washington power player.
Bush described Cheney in a statement Tuesday as a "decent, honorable man. History will remember him as among the finest public servants of his generation.. a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence, and seriousness of purpose to every position," Bush said.
In his final years, Cheney, still a hardline conservative, nevertheless became largely ostracized from his party over his intense criticism of President Donald Trump, whom he branded a "coward" and the greatest-ever threat to the republic.