Having survived five heart attacks, Cheney had long thought he was living on borrowed time.

WASHINGTON — Dick Cheney, the former Vice President who became a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq, has died. He was 84. 

The Cheney family shared the news on Tuesday morning, announcing that the former vice president had died Monday night. Cheney died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to his family.

“For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States,” the statement said. “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.” 

“We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man,” the statement continued.

Cheney had a complicated history with his health, having survived five heart attacks. 

Cheney long thought he was living on borrowed time and declared in 2013 he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day,” an odd image for a figure who always seemed to be manning the ramparts.

During his vice presidency, he disclosed that he had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear that terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock. 

The quietly forceful Cheney served father and son presidents, leading the armed forces as defense 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.

Years after leaving office, he became a target of President Donald Trump, especially after his daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Trump’s desperate attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

He is survived by his wife Lynne, by Liz and by a second daughter, Mary.

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