Former Vice President Dick Cheney, an architect and chief practitioner of neoconservative foreign policy who was an influential figure among a generation of Republicans, died Monday.

Cheney died at 84 of complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family published by several news outlets.

Cheney’s decades in Washington included stints as White House chief of staff to President Gerald Ford; as Wyoming’s U.S. House member from 1979 to 1989; and as secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush.

Cheney then served as vice president under Bush’s son George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009.

Cheney was best known for pursuing an aggressive foreign policy to protect American interests, including as a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq

See Full Page