Volkswacht Bodensee - US honors conservative titan Cheney, with Trump off guest list

Cheney's career over half a decade reads like a catalogue of American statecraft, even as his long shadow over foreign policy -- as defense secretary during the Gulf War and as the 46th vice president under George W. Bush -- still divides the country.

Bush and fellow former president Joe Biden were among more than 1,000 guests at the Washington National Cathedral.

But Trump, who hasn't commented on Cheney's death, and his vice president JD Vance were not invited.

Every living former vice president -- Kamala Harris, Mike Pence, Al Gore and Dan Quayle -- were in attendance, along with generals, foreign dignitaries and Supreme Court justices.

"Vice President Dick Cheney was an American patriot who served this country like very few in our history, and I was always inspired by his by his quiet and steady leadership," Pence told cable news network MS NOW outside the cathedral.

Bush was due to deliver a tribute, along with Cheney's daughter Liz -- famously ousted from the congressional Republican Party over her opposition to Trump.

Praised for his intellect and described by historians as the "most powerful vice president in modern US history," Cheney was admired as a strategist of unusual clarity, and a steady hand who helped steer the nation through its darkest hours.

His career spanned the Cold War, the Gulf conflict and the turbulent aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

As vice president under Bush, he redefined a traditionally ceremonial role into one of unparalleled influence, helping drive national security policy and expanding presidential authority.

He was said to embody the paradoxes of power as a meticulous behind-the-scenes operator who often found himself in the spotlight, a staunch conservative who backed civil rights for his lesbian daughter and a statesman regarded both as indispensable and dangerous.

- Darker legacy -

Flags across states were lowered to half-staff after his death on November 3.

But looming over every tribute will be the darker side of his legacy: the expansion of executive power, the "War on Terror," the invasion of Iraq and the now-infamous debate over America's use of torture.

For critics, he was the architect of some of the nation's most calamitous decisions, a politician whose belief in executive power and aggressive foreign policy left deep scars at home and abroad.

Cheney was a key advocate for the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- famously stating that "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction" -- a conviction that haunted his legacy after the intelligence unraveled.

He championed sweeping surveillance powers under the Patriot Act and defended controversial "enhanced interrogation" tactics.

But Cheney underwent a late-career reinvention as a critic of his own party's populist drift.

A vocal detractor of Trump, whom he called a "threat to our republic," he even endorsed Harris, the president's Democratic election rival in 2024.

Trump's absence from the funeral reflected the ideological rifts that divided Washington and the wider United States during Cheney's final years, and the demise of the bipartisanship valued by the oldest generation of Washington power-brokers.

The president has been silent on Cheney's death, although his press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump was "aware" of his passing.

Responding to criticism from Cheney, Trump once described the former vice president as an "irrelevant RINO" -- meaning "Republican In Name Only" -- and a "king of endless, nonsensical wars, wasting lives and trillions of dollars."

C.Bruderer--VB