ARAB-US RELATIONS - Jan. 26 - Cheney Says Freedom Is Key To Defeating Terror.

VP Dick Cheney tells political and business leaders in Rome the key to defeating terrorism is a sustained effort to spread freedom around the Middle East. But he cautions that the task could take a generation or longer. He urges states pursuing WMD programmes to follow Libya's example and give up their ambitions for the sake of better external relations. Drawing a comparison between today's Middle East and Europe in the mid-20th century, he says those who believed permanent tension was a fact of life in Europe and that some European cultures were incapable of sustaining democracy had been proved wrong after 1945. "The true sources of conflict were despotic and anti-democratic regimes", he says. "What was once said about Europe is often said today about the greater Middle East. We are told that democratic values can never take root in that part of the world. These claims are condescending, and they are false... Helping the people of the greater Middle East to overcome the freedom deficit is, ultimately, the key to winning the broader war on terror". He says civilised nations face "a sophisticated global network of terrorists" whose goal of acquiring WMD has become more evident since 9/11. He adds: "From materials seized by coalition forces in Afghanistan, and from interrogations of captured terrorists, we know that they are doing everything they can to acquire chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear weapons". He says NATO needs "more deployable forces" and should be strengthened so it could "turn its might against the global forces of terror".