Cheney rallies troops in Iraq
Rallying troops after an overnight stay at an air base, US Vice President Dick Cheney said today that as long as freedom is suppressed in the Middle East, the region will remain a place of “stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export.”
“You and I know what it means to be free,” Mr Cheney told the troops at an outdoor rally.
“We wouldn’t give such freedoms away and neither would the people of Iraq or Afghanistan, but in both of those countries, they’re facing attack from violent extremists who want to end all democratic progress and pull them once again in the direction of tyranny.”
“We’re helping them fight back because it’s the right thing to do and because it’s important to our own long-term security,” Mr Cheney said.
“As President Bush has said, the war on terror is an ideological struggle and as long as this part of the world remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export.”
The vice president, the highest ranking US official to stay overnight in Iraq, plans to meet with Iraqi leaders before heading to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Palestinian territory and Turkey, the next stops on his 10-day trip through the region.
Among the officials on his schedule was Massoud Barzani, head of the regional administration in the semiautonomous Kurdish area.
Mr Cheney and his wife, Lynne, slept in a trailer set up for VIPs at Balad Air Base about 40 miles north-west of Baghdad, then had breakfast with some of the 20,000 US troops on the base, which supplies food, fuel, bullets and other items - from toilet paper to military hardware – to all operations in Iraq.
It was Mr Cheney’s second overnight in Iraq. He spent a night last May at Camp Speicher, a base near former leader Saddam Hussein’s hometown and about 100 miles north of Baghdad.
Noise from mortar and artillery shells fired from the base interrupted sleep during the pre-dawn hours, but base officials said later the shelling was routine – used to keep pressure on ground miles off base where insurgents have been active before.
Mr Cheney said he was already up when he heard the explosions.
“Nobody came running in to wake me up,” he said as he loaded his plate with sausage, bacon and eggs, and hash browns. He and his wife and daughter, Liz, who also spent the night at the base, had breakfast with a dozen or more troops, and Mr Cheney presented two bronze stars awarded for valour.
