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Cheney defends U.S.-led war in IraqSpeech part of Bush administration's PR effort
Friday, October 10, 2003 Posted: 1:19 PM EDT (1719 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday that terrorists are "doing everything they can" to get weapons of mass destruction that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans "in a single day of horror." In a speech staunchly defending the U.S.-led war in Iraq as part of the Bush administration's efforts to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, Cheney said the arguments over the administration's handling of Iraq are "helping to frame the most important debate of the post-9/11 era." His appearance before the conservative Heritage Foundation marked the latest in a series of speeches top administration officials are giving in hopes of curbing the growing criticism over the U.S. handling of Iraq. (White House tries new PR effort) "Some claim we should not have acted because the threat from Saddam Hussein was not imminent," Cheney said. "Terrorist enemies of our country hope to strike us with the most lethal weapons known to man and it would be reckless in the extreme to rule out action and save our worries until the day they strike." He added, "As long as George W. Bush is president of the United States, this country will not permit gathering threats to become certain tragedies." (Bush marks Saddam's fall) Democrats, particularly those seeking their party's 2004 presidential nomination, have grown sharper in their criticism of the administration's Iraq policy. For example, during Thursday night's debate featuring the Democratic White House hopefuls, Rep. Richard Gephardt made a point of highlighting the hundreds of U.S. soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq since Bush declared an end to major combat May 1. "The president is failing in his responsibility to get us the help we need," Gephardt, D-Missouri, said. More than 100,000 U.S. troops are leading the occupation of Iraq, which President Bush calls the "central front" of the war on terrorism that began with the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Although no evidence links Iraq to those attacks, the vice president stressed the administration's argument that Saddam "cultivated ties to terror, hosting the Abu Nidal organization, supporting terrorists, making payments to the families of suicide bombers in Israel. He also had an established relationship with al Qaeda, providing training to al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons, gases, making conventional bombs." Cheney called the possibility of terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction "the ultimate nightmare" that "could bring devastation to our country on a scale we have never experienced. Instead of losing thousands of lives, we might lose tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lives in a single day of horror. ... "We must do everything in our power to keep terrorists from ever acquiring weapons of mass destruction." He pointed to elements of a recent report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, led by Washington's chief weapons inspector David Kay. While Kay's team has not found any such weapons in the country, Cheney stressed that it did find "WMD-related program activities" and equipment concealed from U.N. weapons inspector through extensive efforts. (Kay: Iraq team making significant finds) "Critics of our national security policy have also argued that to confront a gathering threat is simply to stir up hostility," he said. "In the case of Saddam Hussein, his hostility to our country long predates 9/11 and America's war on terror. "In the case of the al Qaeda terrorists, their hostility has long been evident. And year after year, the terrorists only grew bolder in the absence of forceful response from America and other nations." He added, "Another criticism we hear is that the United States, when its security is threatened, may not act without unanimous international consent. ... Though often couched in high-sounding terms of unity and cooperation, it is a prescription for perpetual disunity and obstructionism. In practice, it would prevent our own country from acting with friends and allies, even in the most urgent circumstance." Cheney said the policies of deterrence and containment that the administration's critics call for are things of the past, because the terrorist enemy "has no country to defend" and "there's no containing a terrorist who will commit suicide for the purposes of mass slaughter. There's also no containing a terrorist state that secretly passes along deadly weapons to a terrorist network."
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