BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.

Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.

I'm Tim Franks. We're starting the programme with the news that the former US Vice President, Dick Cheney, has died.

He was 84 and served two terms during the administration of George W. Bush at the start of the century.

Often described as one of the most powerful vice presidents in U.S. history,

he'll be remembered in particular for the role he played in orchestrating America's controversial war on terror.

In a few minutes, we'll hear from an Iraqi perspective and from a colleague who was often in the room with Dick Cheney.

But first, our former Washington correspondent Paul Adams reports.

And I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I'm about to enter, so help me God. On which I'm about to enter, so help me God.

On which I'm about to enter, so help me guide.

Congratulations.

Richard Bruce Cheney swore in as vice president in January 2001,

a Washington veteran returning to the heart of power

after almost a decade in business.

But a man whose lasting reputation would be forged in a battle that began

just a few months later.

In some ways, Dick Cheney was an archetype of the American West, strong, silent, more interested

in action than words. He said his favourite virtue was integrity, and his vision of

happiness was fly fishing on the Snake River in his home state of Wyoming. At the age of 34, after just

five years in Washington, he became the country's youngest ever presidential chief of staff,

serving Gerald Ford in the White House. He went on to represent Wyoming for a decade in the

House of Representatives before George Bush Sr. appointed him Secretary of Defense in 1989.

...