History Will Vindicate Dick Cheney

Key Points and Summary – Dick Cheney’s death at 84 rekindles long-running disputes, but the record shows a leader defined by principle and steadiness.

-As vice president, he pressed briefers, challenged intelligence groupthink, and treated terrorism as an ideological threat. On Iraq, intelligence was equivocal; refusing to apologize, he judged outcomes over headlines, likening the case to Truman and Korea. Iraq ultimately improved, and history will judge it more favorably.

-In an era of poll-driven politics and foreign influence, Cheney’s constancy—staking positions and accepting costs—stands out.

-America needs more leaders willing to lead unapologetically and prioritize national success.

In Dick Cheney, America Lost a Hero

Dick Cheney passed away on November 3, 2025, at age 84. There are no shortage of obituaries that both detail his career and cast aspersions for both his influence and decisions in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, most notably President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.

Suffice to say, Cheney was one of the most influential men of his time. He was President Gerald Ford’s chief-of-staff, twice served as secretary of Defense, before returning from the private sector to become Bush’s vice president.

I did not know Cheney well; I had met him briefly over the years, not during my time in the Bush administration but rather in my subsequent capacity as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When I would see Cheney at events or meals, he was always cordial, friendly, and quietly brilliant. On a personal level, he was a mensch.

What I did witness firsthand, however, was how different the malign myth of Cheney was from reality. Many of the calumnies that pollute Cheney’s various obituaries reflect not the reality of Cheney, but rather the partisanship and laziness of the press that covered him.

Traditionally and constitutionally, the role of the vice president has been little more than break rare senate ties, to sit around on the off chance the president becomes incapacitated or dies, and to represent the United States at the state funerals of foreign leaders. Indeed, that was largely the reputation of Vice President George H.W. Bush, even though as a former U.S. representative to the People’s Republic of China and CIA chief, he was perhaps the most qualified man ever to assume the vice presidency prior to Cheney. Ford, meanwhile, who first became an accidental vice president, would hardly merit a footnote had he not also become an accidental president upon Richard Nixon’s resignation.

Cheney was influential, but he did not change the role of the vice presidency himself. That honor goes to Al Gore. Before accepting the vice presidency, Gore and Bill Clinton agreed that the two would have weekly lunches and that Gore would have substantive input in appointments and policy and become the president’s “indisputable chief adviser.”

Cheney also entered the vice presidency as a trusted advisor. George W. Bush saw himself as a domestic president but true to history, it is often the crisis no one saw coming during the campaign that defines the national security legacy of an administration. So it was with 9/11.

As a two-time Secretary of Defense, it was natural that Bush would turn to Cheney for counsel. Many within the State Department had downplayed Al Qaeda and had urged negotiating with the Taliban. Cheney understood that the root of terror was not grievance, but ideology.

In the wake of 9/11, Al Qaeda and terror became the singular focus of the Bush administration. The Central Intelligence Agency continued briefing not only Bush and Cheney, but every other principal within their administration. Within the CIA, groupthink predominates. Agency politics discourage risk-taking.  Often, briefings are lackluster. Cheney would ask questions. While the press interpreted this as political pressure, it was simply good leadership. If the CIA was as certain of itself as it claimed, its briefers and those who constructed the briefings should be able to answer questions. If they could not, that was less a reflection of Cheney’s politics then their own competence. Nor did Cheney operate a shadow government. His staff was small—orders of magnitude smaller than the State Department or Pentagon. His aides attended some meeting, but hardly most. Their sin was the same as Cheney’s—questioning group think and conventional wisdom.

Cheney often said he made the best decisions with the intelligence available at the time. This was true. While the CIA likes to depict its intelligence on Iraq as clear and suggest Cheney fabricated a pretext for war, the reality was that CIA reports often pointed in multiple directions and were full of if’s and but’s. One of my jobs in the Pentagon was to read through lengthy intelligence reports and highlight for the Defense Department leadership the CIA’s so-called trap doors, where they would include statements opposite of their own assertions that they would embrace should their main points prove wrong. So it was with pre-war Iraq intelligence.

Even after the CIA’s assertions on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction proved wrong, Cheney was right to refuse to apologize for the war. First, the war changed Iraq for the better, as any visitor to the country realizes.

For many inside the Beltway, Iraq was a political football to kick around; for Cheney, Iraqis were real. Today, Iraq is thriving. Cheney understood history: President Harry S. Truman’s contemporaries wanted him to abandon South Korea for much the same reason Cheney’s critics called the Iraq war a mistake. But Cheney played the long-game; history will vindicate him.

The Bottomline

Indeed, Cheney’s approach to Iraq, even after the U.S. public mood soured, demonstrated just why Cheney was so special and why Americans should miss him. Today, politicians from both parties shift with the wind.

The failure to ground in principle is what opens the door to foreign interference, as countries from China and Russia to Turkey and Qatar and even to Norway, countries corrupt media, think tanks, and influencers to change public perception and the polls upon which American politicians rely.

Cheney was old-school: He staked out a position. He led. He wanted America to win unapologetically. He understood government was not an algorithm and consistency mattered.

Cheney may be gone, but the United States needs more men and women like Dick Cheney if it truly will become the shining beacon on the hill.

About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. The opinions and views expressed are his own. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea on the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, covering conflicts, culture, and terrorism to deployed US Navy and Marine units. The views expressed are the author’s own.

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