The death of former Vice President Dick Cheney earlier this week has evoked divisive reflections across the United States toward one of Washington's most influential figures of the century.

One of the key sources of contention lies in the central role that Cheney, who passed away Monday due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease at the age of 84, played as an architect of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The intervention quickly toppled then-President Saddam Hussein, but the upheaval and subsequent policies of then-President George W. Bush 's administration also brought a wave of unrest and insurgency that empowered Al-Qaeda, entrenched the influence of Iran and allied militias across Iraq and paved the way for the rise of the Islamic State militant g

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