Cheney addresses Salt Lake City gathering

Vice President Dick Cheney spoke about the war in Iraq this afternoon during a brief visit to the Council for National Policy, said those who heard his speech.

News media were not allowed to observe the event, which was held in the Imperial Ballroom at the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney also spoke to members of the Council for National Policy, which is described as a secretive conservative networking group.

Utah Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert said the vice president's speech was given to a "very friendly audience" of maybe 300 to 400 people.

"He talked about how it is not an option to lose," Herbert said about Cheney's remarks on the war.

Herbert is not a member of the Council for National Policy, but has been invited to speak Saturday during the group's four-day conference here. Former Utah lawmaker LaVar Christensen declined to comment on the vice president's remarks but said Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, gave a speech that touched on family and other conservative values.

"We don't talk about the specifics outside, but in general, regarding the governor, the speech was sincere and substantive ... it was from the heart," Christensen said.

Loud applause could be heard from the ballroom both during and after the vice president's speech and Romney's speech. Romney was approached by news media as he entered the event, but declined comment.

As for Cheney, he was greeted at Salt Lake City International Airport by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., first lady Mary Kaye Huntsman, Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert and other dignitaries before being whisked away in a car for his speech downtown.

The vice president had no public appearances. Cheney was last in Utah in April to deliver the commencement speech at Brigham Young University in Provo.

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Contributing: Associated Press

E-mail: nwarburton@desnews.com