Former US vice-president and Iraq war architect believed to be attending in a personal capacity, not as part of official US party

Dick Cheney, former US vice-president and driving force behind the country's invasion of Iraq, is to attend the Thatcher funeral, No 10 has confirmed.

Other high-profile US guests include Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state and the maverick rightwinger Ross Perot. Barack Obama announced on this week that former US secretaries of state George Shultz and James Baker III would lead a US presidential delegation to the ceremony. Louise Susman, the recently departed US ambassador in London, would also attend.

Michelle Bachmann, the ultra-conservative former presidential candidate, will attend with two other Republicans from Congress.

Downing Street indicated on Tuesday that Cheney was attending in a personal capacity, not as an official US representative. Nonetheless, his presence is likely to enrage many. As George W Bush's number two between 2001-2009, Cheney was one of the chief architects of the war in Iraq.

Since leaving office, Cheney has refused to apologise for taking the US to war and has been a relentless critic of Obama's alleged security policy failings. He has defended the use of enhanced interrogation techniques against prisoners.

French diplomats have confirmed that Elisabeth Guigou, the Socialist MP and head of the parliament foreign affairs committee, will represent France at Thatcher's funeral. She was a close adviser to President François Mitterrand during most of the Thatcher years. In the 1990s she held several cabinet posts including minister for European Affairs and justice minister. No serving French minister is expected to attend the funeral.

Downing Street also said that former members of Thatcher's cabinet will attend, including Lord Patten, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Peter Lilley. Several other former MPs will attend, including Lady Boothroyd, Lord Coe, Sir Menzies Campbell and David Trimble.

John Sergeant, the former BBC political correspondent, will also be a guest. It was Sergeant who famously thrust a microphone in Lady Thatcher's face in 1990 when she announced outside the British embassy in Paris that she would contest a second round in the Conservative party leadership contest. Hours later she resigned.

Other guests include the new director-general of the BBC, Tony Hall, the Tory supporter Raymond Monbiot and the civil servant Sir Alex Allen, David Cameron's independent adviser.

Luke Harding