MUSCAT, March 19, 2008 (AFP) - US Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview Wednesday that the US strategy in Iraq cannot be "blown off course" by polls showing the US public overwhelmingly opposing the war.
Queried on ABC television about polls showing that about two-thirds of Americans believe, five years after the March 19, 2003 invasion, that the war was not worth fighting, Cheney's first response was "So?"
Asked whether he did not care what the US public though, Cheney replied: "No, I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls."
He also said that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and subsequent US efforts to build a democracy in Iraq, were a "huge accomplishment."
"There has, in fact, been fundamental change and transformation, and improvement for the better," the US vice president, part-way through a nine-day trip through the Middle East and Turkey, told ABC.
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03/19/2008 12:26 GMT