Cheney says heard "loud boom" when Bagram base attacked
Source: Reuters
(Adds quotes, details) By Caren Bohan MUSCAT, Oman, Feb 27 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheny heard the bomb attack at the gate of Bagram Airbase where he had spent the night and was briefly moved to a bomb shelter, he said on Tuesday. "They clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government," Cheney told reporters travelling with him out of Afghanistan on a military plane to Oman. "Striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber I suppose is one way to do that." Cheney had been in his room at the U.S. airbase where he had stayed the night unexpectedly after bad weather forced postponment of his trip to the Afghan capital, about 60 km (40 miles) away. "At 10 a.m. I heard a loud boom," Cheney said. A red alert was sounded on the airbase and secret service officials told Cheney there had been a suspected suicide attack. "They moved me for a relatively brief period of time to one of the bomb shelters nearby," he said. "As the situation settled down and they got a better sense in terms of what was going on, then I went back to my room until it was time to leave." At noon local time Cheney flew to Kabul and had lunch with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace. Asked if he had ever considered changing his plans to go to Kabul, Cheney said that was "never an option". Cheney was due to depart Muscat later on Tuesday for Washington.
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