Architect of Bush's war on terror dies at age 84

AS US Vice-President Dick Cheney was the most powerful - and perhaps most feared - deputy in American history.

- BY CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN

The “architect of the war on terror” and champion of torture in all but name, he was the driving force in convincing Britain to support the invasion of Iraq.

As the man who turned a presidency into a fortress of secrecy, the 84-year-old, who died yesterday from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, leaves a legacy soaked in controversy and consequence.

For much of his career, Mr Cheney was content to lurk in the shadows.

While George W Bush was the public face of the White House, Mr Cheney was the hand on the tiller - calm, ruthless and utterly convinced he was right.

HARDLINE

In his final years, however, the hard-line conservative, became largely ostracised from the Republican party over his intense criticism of Donald Trump, whom he branded a “coward” and the greatest ever threat to the republic.

He vowed to vote for Mr Trump's opponent Democrat Kamala Harris.

After being kicked out of Yale University, he earned degrees from the University of Wyoming, his home state.

His boozy early antics were captured in the 2018 biopic Vice.

After sobering up he found his way into Washington as a congressional aide. By the time he became Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staff in the mid-1970s, Mr Cheney had already mastered the dark arts of bureaucratic power.