Cheney Targeted in Afghanistan

A bomb exploded outside the main U.S. base in Afghanistan while Vice President Cheney was there:

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) - A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, killing at least 14 people and wounding a dozen more. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was the target.

Cheney's spokeswoman said he was fine, and the vice president later met with President Hamid Karzai in the capital, Kabul, before leaving the country....

Maj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president. "He wasn't near the site of the explosion," Mitchell said. "He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion."

However, a purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack.

"We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base," Ahmadi told AP telephone from an undisclosed location. "The attacker was trying to reach Cheney."

It's hard to say if this is a case of the bad guys claiming credit after the fact, or a case where somebody among the Afghani authorities tipped off the Taliban. Since it doesn't appear that Cheney was in any real danger, I'm inclined to believe that the bad guys claimed credit only after finding out that Cheney happened to be there.

UPDATE: The prevailing wisdom seems to be that this was an assassination attempt, though clumsy at best since there were many layers of security between the bombers and the Vice President. The left if very upset that the attempt failed, as you can imagine.