Taliban Claims Cheney Was Target Of Attack
VP Unharmed By Suicide Bomber During Visit To Afghan Base; As Many As 23 Killed
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Play CBS Video Video Taliban Bomb Targets Cheney The Taliban has taken responsibility for a suicide bombing that struck Bagram Airbase, claiming that Vice President Dick Cheney was the target. Sheila MacVicar reports.
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Video Cheney, Musharraf Meet U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made an unexpected visit to Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with President General Pervez Musharraf concerning a resurgence of al Qaeda activity in the region.
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Video Cheney Safe In Afghanistan Vice President Dick Cheney may have been the target of a Taliban suicide bomber at a U.S. base in Afghanistan. David Martin reports that the U.S. is pressuring Pakistan to get tough on the Taliban.
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Relatives carry the dead body of an Afghan man who was killed during a suicide attack at the main U.S. air base of Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan on Feb. 27, 2007. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, with Vice President Dick Cheney, meeting in Kabul, Afghanistan, Feb. 27, 2007, hours after a suicide bomb attack outside the Bagram U.S. military base during Cheney's visit to the base. (AP)
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People gather near the watchtower, left, where a suicide bomber blew himself up Feb. 27, 2007, outside the Bagram U.S. Military base in Afghanistan, during the visit of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who was not injured. (AP)
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Interactive Second In Command A closer look at Vice President Dick Cheney's career and his much-publicized health problems.
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Fast Facts Afghanistan Learn about the people, economy and history.
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Photo Essay Landmark Vote The Afghan people participate in their first-ever direct election.
Perino said President Bush got an update Tuesday morning about the attack, but had not yet spoken to Cheney about it. Bush was not awakened to be told about the attack, she said.
"Of course, we're glad that he's OK," Perino said of Cheney.
The explosion happened near the first of at least three gated checkpoints vehicles must pass through before gaining access to Bagram.
The base houses 5,100 U.S. troops and 4,000 other coalition forces and contractors. High security areas within the base are blocked by their own checkpoints. It was unclear how an attacker could expect to penetrate the base, locate Cheney and get close to him without detection.
Mitchell told CBS News in a telephone interview from Bagram that it appeared a lone bomber passed through an "open gate" at the perimeter of the well-fortified installation and then blew himself up when he reached security at an inner gate.
"We maintain a high level of security here at all times. Our security measures were in place and the killer never had access to the base," said Lt. Col. James E. Bonner, the base operations commander. "When he realized he would not be able to get onto the base, he attacked the local population."
Khan Shirin, a private security guard, sobbed near the body of his relative, Farvez, a truck driver and the representative of transport association that hauls goods for the base. Shirin said many of the people killed were truck drivers waiting to get inside.
Ajmall, a shopkeeper, said the "huge" blast shook a small market where he has a stall about 500 yards from the base. Ajmall, who goes by one name, said those wounded were taken inside the U.S. base for treatment.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said one of its troops stationed in Bagram, Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, 27, was killed in the explosion. South Korea has about 200 engineers and medics in Bagram.
Cheney later flew by plane to Kabul, 30 miles south of Bagram, to meet Karzai after a planned meeting on Monday was canceled because of bad weather that prevented the vice president making the trip to the capital.
Cheney was met by guards with guns drawn on the tarmac and was rushed by ground convoy to the presidential palace, where he and Karzai walked a long receiving line and past oriental rugs laid out on the wet, stone pavement.
Cheney and Karzai met privately for an hour and spoke about the "problems coming from Pakistan," said an Afghan government official, a reference to cross-border infiltration by militants who launch attacks in Afghanistan.
"We understand now that the U.S. government realizes that in order to stop terrorism in Afghanistan and to stop terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, there must be a clear fight against terrorism in Pakistan," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Visiting Pakistan before his Afghanistan trip, the vice president pressured Pakistan's President Musharraf to get more aggressive, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. But according to Derek Chollet of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, U.S. options in Pakistan are nearing a dead end — even a disastrous end — if Musharraf were to fall.
"We're one bad event away from this going down the tubes, which is a dangerous position to be in, given how vital Pakistan is and Pakistan's stability is to U.S. interests, given the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear power," Chollet said.
Five years after their fundamentalist regime was toppled, Taliban-led militants have stepped up their attacks and Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces are bracing for a fresh wave of violence in the spring.
Such an attack, the closest militants have got to a top U.S. official visiting Afghanistan, will likely have propaganda value for the resurgent Taliban movement.
In January 2006, a militant blew himself up in Uruzgan province during a supposedly secret visit by the U.S. ambassador, killing 10 Afghans.
There were 139 suicide bombings last year, a fivefold increase over 2005, and Rodriguez has said he expects the number of suicide bombs to rise even further in 2007.
In the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, meanwhile, a suicide attacker targeting police blew himself up, wounding three people, said police officer Abdul Nafai.
NATO-led troops patrolling the city also fatally shot a civilian who drove too close to their convoy, police said, the third such fatal shooting this month. Squadron Leader David Marsh, a military spokesman, said soldiers had signaled for the car to stop, but it kept approaching.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 218 CommentsThe bad thing is (23) people are dead & Cheney is still alive.
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The loud bang Cheney heard just might have knocked the wax from his ears so he can hear what the American people are saying about his war.
Nah. It'll never happen.
***When*** ***Bush*** ***moved*** ***South*** ***it*** ***lowered*** ***the*** ***IQ*** ***of*** ***both*** ***parts*** ***of*** ***the*** ***country***.
Its like a media bonanza though, a homicide bomb goes off and it just so happens......that they missed anyways, couldnt get in the front gate, let alone close enough to a single building to do any real damage.
Oh, recoup the loss, they can make a claim and try to garner attention by the world media...it works.
Feed the troll CBS, your a puppet.
I ought to strangle your ******* a$$ and pump southern-style grits into your gaping dead maw.
Shhh! Connecticut doesn't want anyone to know!! Would you?
Posted by SHURCH4TRUTH
Shurch4,
Thanks for letting seven-pesos know that not everyone thinks like he/she/it does. I think it is funnt that that person goes on and on about Duhbya and the south when Duhbya was born in Connecticut. That means he contaminated the south when he was a child, he wasn't born here.
i wipe my azz with the confederate flag.
i shiit on the south.
war, hate, phony christian creeps...
ignorant republican redneck, white trash, slave state south...
bush country!
nothing good comes out of the south.
Posted by hypnotoad72 at 06:59 PM : Feb 27, 2007
Yeah, I agree! Senseless deaths are so dumb and barbaric!
At least Bush and Cheney send our young men and women to die for a reason, the no-bid contracts for Halliburton and all their cronies.
The American taxpayers are paying 2 billion a week for the war in Iraq! Now that's genius!
War is great for business!
--- 9/11 Terrorist & the USS Cole bombing was by Sunni's, most where from the UAE.
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