Former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the most powerful vice presidents in American history and a leading architect of one of the most catastrophic U.S. foreign policy decisions, the invasion of Iraq, died Monday. He was 84.

“His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” his family wrote in a statement. “The former vice president died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.”

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Cheney’s five-decade career made him one of the most experienced and influential figures in modern American politics. Before serving as George W. Bush’s vice president from 2001 to 2009, he was Secretary of Defense under President George H. W. Bush (1989 to 1993), a congressman from Wyoming for ten years

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