US Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday night that he accepted the Republican nomination of vice presidential candidate, pledging that he would make incumbent President George W. Bush for one more term.

"I accept your nomination for vice president of the United States," Cheney said in a speech delivered at the ongoing Republican National Convention that opened in New York Monday.

"This nation has reached another of those defining moments," and the election this year "is one of the most important, not just in our lives, but in our history," he said.

Cheney, believed to be one of the most powerful vice presidents in US history, vowed to "make George W. Bush president for another four years."

On the US-led war on terror, he said the United States had captured or killed hundreds of al-Qaeda members, and had shut down camps training terrorists and driven the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan. In Iraq, he said, the Bush administration dealt with a "gathering threat" and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The biggest threat the country faced today was having nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists, said Cheney. "The president is working with many countries in a global effort to end the trade and transfer of these deadly technologies."

Describing John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, as "an experienced senator," Cheney said Kerry often "speaks of his service in Vietnam" and "has made the wrong call on national security."

He said Kerry was one of a hundred votes in the Senate and his views "rarely prevailed" on matters of national security, attacking the Massachusetts senator for "disagreement with himself" and displaying "a habit of indecision."

The four-day Republican convention is to end Thursday night, to be culminated by Bush's speech to accept the Republican presidential nomination.

(Xinhua News Agency September 2, 2004)