US vice president Dick Cheney has claimed Iraq could become a staging area for large-scale terrorist attacks on the United States if troops are withdrawn too early.
With no let-up in the Iraqi insurgency; opinion polls showing US public unease about the war and some lawmakers questioning how long troops will remain, the Bush administration has stressed in recent weeks that it does not view pulling out as an option.
Cheney claims Iraq could become a staging area for terrorist attacks on the US
As he visited troops returning from a seven-month deployment in Iraq, Mr Cheney said there had been "superb" progress, although he admitted that al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in Iraq were testing US resolve.
"If the terrorists were to succeed, they would return Iraq to the rule of tyrants, make it a source of instability in the Middle East and use it as a staging area for ever greater attacks against America and other civilized nations," Mr Cheney said.
The vice president was a leading architect of the US. invasion of Iraq in 2003, predicting US forces would be "greeted as liberators" and saying it would help defeat terrorism by depriving al-Qaeda of an ally.
He has also regularly given upbeat defences of US Iraq policy, saying in May the insurgency was in its "last throes."
Yesterday, he echoed President Bush in connecting the argument for staying in Iraq to the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States. He said an early pullout would only embolden militants.