Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney has died at the age of 84

He died from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease on Monday night, his family say

"Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honour, love, kindness, and fly fishing," they add - read their statement in full

Cheney served as President Gerald Ford's White House chief of staff in the 1970s, before spending a decade in the House of Representatives

He was a key architect of President George W Bush's 'War on Terror' after the 9/11 attacks, and an early advocate of the invasion of Iraq in 2003

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Cheney later became a bitter critic of the Republican Party under the leadership of President Donald Trump

Dick Cheney was a key part of President George W Bush’s "war on terror", including the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

In the lead-up to the invasion, Cheney said that Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed so-called weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons were never found during the military campaign.

Cheney also repeatedly claimed there were links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, the terror group led by Osama bin Laden that claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks. He said the attackers would incur the "full wrath" of American military might.

"The fact is we know that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were heavily involved with terror," Cheney said in 2006., external

In 2005, Cheney warned of "decades of patient effort" in the war on terror, warning "it will be resisted by those whose only hope for power is through the spread of violence".

His key role in the campaign left him with a controversial political legacy, after the US took years to extricate itself from its costly war in Iraq.