http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040126/pl_nm/cheney_iraq_dcCheney Defends Iraq War, Skirts Arms Issue
By Randall Mikkelsen
ROME (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney defended the U.S.-led Iraq war Monday amid mounting criticism over failure to find unconventional weapons.
"Today the former dictator (of Iraq) sits in captivity; he can no longer harbor and support terrorists, and his long efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction are at an end," Cheney told Italian political and business leaders.
In his speech in the Italian Senate, he made no mention of earlier U.S. charges that Iraq possessed threatening chemical and biological weapons -- the heart of the U.S. case for the war on Iraq.
The chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq, David Kay, stepped down Friday and said he doubted Iraq possessed unconventional weapons, and that he believed "the intelligence community owes the president (George W. Bush)" an explanation.
But critics including Democratic presidential candidates have stepped up their charges against the Bush administration and Cheney in particular over the missing weapons, and called for an investigation. <snip>