WASHINGTON – Former US vice president Dick Cheney was recovering on Saturday after undertaking a heart transplant at a hospital in Virginia, his spokeswoman said.
Dick Cheney. AFP FILE PHOTO
Cheney, 71, who remains a prominent figure in the Republican Party, had been on a list for a heart transplant for more than 20 months, said a statement from his spokeswoman Kara Ahern.
Cheney “is recovering in the intensive care unit of Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia, after undergoing heart transplant surgery on Saturday,” the statement said.
“Although the former vice president and his family do not know the identity of the donor, they will be forever grateful for this lifesaving gift,” it added.
Cheney has suffered a long list of health scares. In a 2011 interview with NBC News, he said a special pump implanted in his heart in 2010 was “a miracle of modern technology” that had kept him alive but was a “temporary measure.”
He suffered his first heart attack in 1978 at the age of 37 and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1988. He since had two artery-clearing angioplasties and in 2001 was fitted with a pacemaker.
Despite his persistent health problems, Cheney has remained a prominent Republican on the political scene since leaving office, often criticizing President Barack Obama.
But last May, Cheney said Obama “deserves credit” for the operation in Pakistan killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
One of America’s most powerful and controversial vice presidents, Cheney was a driving force behind George W. Bush’s “war on terror” that included the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
It also included the wiretapping of US citizens without a warrant and the use of harsh interrogation methods that met global definitions of torture.
Cheney’s book released last year, “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir,” criticized members of the Bush administration including then secretary of state Colin Powell.
Bush, in a 2010 memoir, admitted he considered dropping Cheney ahead of his re-election run but defended his vice president as well as the invasion of Iraq.
Bush wrote that he spent weeks considering an offer by Cheney to drop him from his 2004 re-election ticket, saying Cheney was seen as “dark and heartless – the Darth Vader of the administration.”