WASHINGTON — Dick Cheney, a giant of Republican politics and one of the most powerful vice presidents in US history, has died, his family announced Tuesday. He was 84.

Cheney, who served eight years as vice president under former President George W. Bush — including during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks — died Monday night “due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease,” his relatives said in a statement.

“His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” the Cheneys said.

“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” the statement said.

“We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”

Cheney suffered heart problems for most of his life, surviving the first of five heart attacks at age 37 before undergoing a heart transplant in 2012.

A hard-charging conservative, the former White House chief of staff, congressman, and defense secretary was one of the most influential — and polarizing — men to occupy the office a heartbeat from the presidency. 

Bush, 79, called Cheney’s death a “loss to the nation and a sorrow to his friends” in a statement Tuesday morning. 

“Laura and I will remember Dick Cheney for the decent, honorable man that he was,” the 43rd president said. “History will remember him as among the finest public servants of his generation – a patriot who brought integrity, high intelligence, and seriousness of purpose to every position he held.”

During the younger Bush’s administration, Cheney was a forceful advocate for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq – suggesting there were links between Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks and warning that Baghdad’s supposed stockpile of biological and chemical weapons posed a global threat.

Although no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, Cheney was steadfast in later years that the invasion and toppling of Hussein was the right decision based on the available intelligence at the time.

Famously, Cheney split with George W. Bush on gay marriage, disagreeing with Bush’s call during the 2004 campaign for a constitutional amendment to enshrine opposite-sex marriage. Cheney’s younger daughter, Mary, is a lesbian, and he argued that the issue should be addressed at the state level.

Democrats made Cheney into a boogeyman over his hawkish views, with some lefty critics seizing on his deep voice to pillory him as a “Darth Vader” figure and the real power in the Bush administration. 

Comedy writer Adam McKay explored that purported dynamic in the 2018 film “Vice,” with the former vice president portrayed by actor Christian Bale. 

The man himself didn’t mind being seen as the villiain, once quipping: “Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? It’s a nice way to operate, actually.”

Born in Lincoln, Neb. on Jan. 30 1941, Cheney moved as a boy to Wyoming with his family before attending Yale University, from which he dropped out due to difficulty adjusting to Eastern life.  (He later received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wyoming.)

Cheney first went to Washington in 1969 as an intern for Rep. William Steiger (R-Wis.) and held various White House jobs during the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, eventually rising to become White House chief of staff in November 1975 — succeeding another future defense secretary and Bush administration colleague, Donald Rumsfeld.

After Ford’s unsuccessful 1976 campaign, which Cheney had managed, he returned to his home state and successfully ran for Congress two years later.

During the 10 years he served as Wyoming’s only representative, Cheney had a highly conservative voting record and rose through the ranks to serve as chair of the House Republican Conference before a very brief stint as House minority whip.

Cheney was picked by George H. W. Bush to run the Pentagon in March 1989 after his first choice, John Tower, was rejected by the Senate. 

Cheney was confirmed 92-0 and served as defense secretary throughout the 41st president’s tenure, including during the Persian Gulf War. 

Following the election of Bill Clinton, Cheney returned to the private sector, spending five years as the CEO of Halliburton, the second-largest oil service company in the world. 

In 2000, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush asked Cheney to advise him on picking potential running mates. 

“In our long discussions about the qualities a vice president should have – deep experience, mature judgment, character, loyalty – I realized that Dick Cheney was the one I needed,” Bush said Tuesday. “I’m still grateful that he was at my side for the eight years that followed.”

Cheney couldn’t stay out of the headlines even when he tried to get away from politics. 

In 2006, he was quail-hunting with pals at a ranch in south Texas when he accidently shot a friend, lawyer and real estate investor Henry Whittington, while aiming for a bird. 

Whittington survived — albeit with dozens of shotgun pellets still lodged in his body — and Cheney was a subject of national mockery.

Calling the incident “one of the worst days of my life,” the ex-veep described himself ruefully as “the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend.”

Cheney also stayed in the spotlight thanks to his daughter Liz, who followed her father to become a Wyoming congresswoman who opposed same-sex marriage, only to reverse course after a long-standing feud with her sister. 

Liz Cheney similarly rose in the House Republican leadership ranks before getting pushed out as conference chair when she turned against Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, serving on the now-defunct House select committee investigating the events leading up to that day.

Trump had been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration and Cheney during his 2016 campaign, bashing him as a war hawk and neoconservative who got the US ensnared in quagmires abroad. 

Cheney stood by his daughter, famously appearing with her on Capitol Hill to mark the one-year anniversary of the riot. 

Later that year, Cheney cut a scathing ad in defense of his daughter during her final re-election bid, ripping Trump as a “coward.” The ad was an electoral failure, as Liz Cheney lost her primary to current Rep. Harriet Hageman.

During the 2024 election cycle, with Trump eyeing a return to office, Dick Cheney came out in support of Democratic former Vice President Kamala Harris.

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a statement that September. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”

“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution,” he said. “That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

With Post wires