Cheney: 'I Erred on Insurgency'

Dick Cheney admitted yesterday that he was wrong when he said the Iraqi insurgency was "in its last throes" in 2005. "My estimate at the time was wrong, it turned out to be incorrect," the VP told CNN's Larry King. He said he had been optimistic that elections and a constitution would "undermine the insurgency," but "that clearly didn't happen."

The insurgency "turned out to be more robust," he said. Cheney blamed the rise of al-Qaeda for bolstering the insurgency and continued to defend the administration's overall plan, saying its decisions have been "absolutely the sound ones." It was the VP's clearest public acknowledgment of setbacks in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion began, Reuters reports. (More Iraq stories.)