By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday the United States must show it has the "stomach" to win in Iraq or it will confirm al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's view that Americans can be pressured to leave. Cheney defended the plan put forward last week by President George W. Bush to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq and said critics had not produced an alternative proposal. U.S. allies helping in fighting terrorism -- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Egypt -- must have confidence that the United States will not leave before a successful outcome, Cheney said. "If the United States doesn't have the stomach to finish the task in Iraq, we put at risk what we've done in all of those other locations," he said on "Fox News Sunday." Bin Laden's strategy is to push U.S. presence out of the region through terrorism, and Iraq is currently at the center of that battle, Cheney said. "It's absolutely essential that we win there, and we will win there," he said. Democrats who took control of Congress this year after winning November elections largely due to public discontent with the Iraq war have opposed Bush's new plan. "They're violating one of the principles of war. You send overwhelming force in. Instead of doing that, they're sending in a little bit at a time," Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said on ABC's "This Week." The U.S.-led invasion and not al Qaeda caused the sectarian violence that has erupted in Iraq, he said. "The occupation is what's causing the sectarian violence. That's the problem we have, and we have to change direction," he said. Cheney said while Democrats have criticized Bush's plan and advocated withdrawal, they have not offered an alternative in its place. "I have yet to hear a coherent policy out of the Democratic side with respect to an alternative to what the president's proposed in terms of going forward," Cheney said. He dismissed public opinion polls that show increasing dissatisfaction with U.S. involvement in the Iraq war and said the president did not conduct policy based on those polls. "You cannot simply stick your finger up in the wind and say gee public opinion's against, we better quit," Cheney said. If the president did that, it would just "validate the al Qaeda view of the world," he said. Bush plan has also met resistance among his own Republican Party. "To say that we're going to feed more American young men and women into that grinder -- put them in the middle of a tribal, sectarian civil war -- is not going to fix the problem," Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Cheney said criticism from members of their own party had not made him or the president feel embattled. "I've seen embattled administrations, this isn't one of them." IRAN 'FISHING' The U.S. military says that five Iranians it is holding from a raid in Iraq are linked to Revolutionary Guards who are supporting militants in Iraq. But Tehran called them diplomats and demanded their release. Iran has created tensions throughout the region by pursuing nuclear weapons, supporting extremists, and providing improvised explosive devices inside Iraq, Cheney said. "It's been pretty well known that Iran is fishing in troubled waters, if you will, inside Iraq, and the president has responded to that," he said. "The threat that Iran represents is growing, it's multidimensional and it is in fact of concern to everybody in the region," Cheney said. (Additional reporting by Missy Ryan and Paul Eckert)
