Cheney defends anti-terror record

JACKSON, Wyo., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney says criticism of controversial anti-terrorism measures he supported after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is "unwarranted."

Defending the Bush administration's "war on terror" in the seven years since the attacks in a Monday interview with his hometown newspaper, the (Jackson Hole, Wyo.) Star-Tribune, Cheney said controversial tactics such as harsh interrogation methods and warrantless wiretapping on international telephone calls helped prevent further attacks on the United States.

"Our critics have accused us of various and sundry deeds connected with those programs," Cheney told the Star-Tribune. "I don't think the criticism is warranted. And I don't think anybody who has spent time looking specifically at the threat, and contemplating the fact that the next attack on one of our cities might not be just with airline tickets and box cutters as was true on 9/11, but rather with a biological and nuclear weapon.

"That's what we had to guard against, and that's what we had to take steps to prevent," he told the newspaper. "Doing that has obviously generated a lot of controversy, but it goes with the turf."