http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/20...

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"What happened on 9/11 was clearly a strategic strike against the United States," Cheney said. "It was an act of war, and it was appropriate for us to respond as though it were an act of war."

It clearly "wasn't enough to catch" the perpetrators, Cheney said.

"We needed to head off more attacks," he told the audience at the Lake Michigan College Mendel Center. "...We needed to go on offense. We had to go after the state sponsors of terror. We'd never done that before."

Seeing terrorism as an act of war allows a much more effective response, including using the military, Cheney said.

"I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I felt that President Obama and his people understood the fact that we're at war," Cheney said.

...

Another audience member asked Cheney about the decision to invade Iraq. Cheney said all the available intelligence said Saddam Hussein was trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, and he was also a "state sponsor of terror" and was giving money to the families of suicide bombers, he added.

"This was a bad guy," Cheney said.