US: US vice-president Dick Cheney yesterday strongly defended a secret domestic eavesdropping operation, and said that if it had been in place before the September 11th attacks, the Pentagon might have been spared.
Mr Cheney insisted the highly classified programme, authorised by president George W Bush after hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, had helped prevent terrorist attacks and did not violate civil liberties.
He said as the memory of September 11th faded, some politicians were "yielding to the temptation to downplay the ongoing threat to our country and to back away from the business at hand".
"The enemy that struck on 9/11 is weakened and fractured, yet it is still lethal and planning to hit us again. Either we are serious about fighting this war or we are not," he told the Heritage Foundation think tank.
Revelations the National Security Agency was monitoring calls between people in the US and al-Qaeda suspects abroad has sparked an outcry from Democrats and Republicans. Many question whether it violates the US constitution. - (Reuters)
