Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed suggestions that the Bush administration's warnings that al-Qaeda terrorists may be targeting U.S. financial centers were ``hyped for political reasons.''
Cheney, speaking at a campaign rally in Lee's Summit, Missouri, near Kansas City, said critics, such as former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, are wrong to suggest it.
``This just tells me Howard Dean doesn't know anything about how these groups operate,'' Cheney said.
Dean said in a Cable News Network interview this week after Homeland Security officials issued a terror warning that ``every time something happens that's not good for President Bush he plays this trump card, which is terrorism.''
U.S. officials Sunday issued an alert for the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup Inc.'s building in New York, Prudential Financial Inc.'s building in Newark, New Jersey, and the main offices of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, saying the sites might be targeted for car or truck bombings.
The Washington Post and the New York Times reported that the warnings were prompted by the discovery of al-Qaeda surveillance documents that were up to three years old. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the information was detailed and had been updated in January.
The alert prompted police in New York and Washington to put heavily armed officers on the streets, to search trucks and bags, and to check identifications of employees entering the named buildings.
Cheney noted that attacks on U.S embassies in Africa in 1998 had been planned for four or five years before the bombings took place. He said Dean was wrong to suggest that ``somehow this is being hyped for political reasons.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan J. Donmoyer in Lee's Summit, Missouri at or rdonmoyer at bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Glenn Hall at ghall at bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: August 4, 2004 15:51 EDT