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Cheney: U.S. determination 'unshakable'

Vice president speaks out after deadly bomb in Baghdad


ON CNN TV
Watch CNN for ongoing live reports and frequent updates from our team in Baghdad -- led by Baghdad Bureau Chief Jane Arraf and correspondent Walter Rodgers -- on the Mount Lebanon Hotel attack.
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CNN Baghdad Bureau Chief Jane Arraf reports from the scene of the blast.

CNN's Walter Rodgers reports on the inferno at a Baghdad hotel.

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Dick Cheney

SIMI VALLEY, California (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday said "thugs and assassins" would not shake the United States' resolve to establish freedom and democracy in Iraq.

He spoke shortly after a car bombing outside a hotel in Baghdad killed at least 27 people and wounded about 41 others.

"We still have work to do in Iraq, and we will see it through," Cheney said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation in Simi Valley, California.

"The thugs and assassins in Iraq are desperately trying to shake our will. Just this morning, they conducted a murderous attack on a hotel in Baghdad. Their goal is to prevent the rise of democracy, but they will fail."

He also referred to the train bombings in Madrid last week, saying that "may well be evidence of how fearful the terrorists are of a free and democratic Iraq.

"But if the murderers of Madrid intended to undermine the transition to democracy in Iraq, they will ultimately fail," he said.

"Our determination is unshakable, we will stand with the people of Iraq as they build a government based on democracy, tolerance and freedom."

The Madrid blast killed 201 people and was initially believed to have been the work of ETA, a Basque separatist group. Since then, however, suspicions have focused on suspects believed to have ties to al Qaeda.

Spanish police have been quizzing three Moroccans -- one said to have links with al Qaeda -- and an Algerian, also with suspected al Qaeda links, has been ordered detained for a further 48 hours.

Blast outside 'green zone'

The Baghdad bomb, which exploded at 8:10 p.m. (12:10 p.m. ET) Wednesday, destroyed the Mount Lebanon Hotel and damaged buildings nearby.

The location -- near Firdos Square, where the large statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down in early April -- has been the scene of attacks in the past.

It is outside the so-called high security 'green zone' which houses coalition troops.

The attack came as coalition forces began Operation Iron Promise, a citywide sweep for insurgents, and about a year to the day the U.S.-led war started.

Cheney also defended the Bush administration's decision to go to war against Iraq without the United Nations' approval.

"As the president has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a coalition of many nations than submitting to the objections of a few," he said.

"The United States will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country."


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