GIVE 'EM HELL, DICK

The Veep takes off the gloves.

After several weeks of domestic and international criticism of Bush's policy of pre-emptively attacking potential threats, Cheney struck back forcefully by calling the U.N. Security Council's 50-year tradition of giving permanent members a veto a "policy of doing exactly nothing."...

Cheney blasted the criticism "that the United States, when its security is threatened, may not act without unanimous international consent," a clear reference to U.N. procedures, under which "the mere objection of even one foreign government would be sufficient to prevent us from acting."

"Though often couched in high-sounding terms of unity and cooperation, it is a prescription for perpetual disunity and obstructionism," Cheney said, adding that this would "confer undue power" on dissenters "while leaving the rest of us powerless to act in our own defense. Yet we continue to hear this attitude in arguments in our own country - so often, and so conveniently, it amounts to a policy of doing exactly nothing."

Cheney's speech was an uncompromising argument that far exceeded what other figures in the administration have asserted. Cheney, for example, dismissed a dozen years of inspections, patrolling of no-fly zones, and strikes against military targets in Iraq, saying "all of these measures failed."