WASHINGTON – Vice President Cheney yesterday said he strongly disagrees with a battle-tested congressman who advocates quickly pulling all American troops from Iraq, calling such a proposal “a dangerous illusion.”

But Mr. Cheney stopped short of joining those Republicans who have questioned the patriotism and courage of Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, calling him “a good man, a Marine, a patriot.” Mr. Cheney’s subdued comments about Mr. Murtha followed those of President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.

At the same time, Mr. Cheney pressed the administration’s high-voltage attack on war critics, particularly Senate Democrats who voted in October 2002 to give Mr. Bush authority to go to war in Iraq and who now oppose his policy, calling them “dishonest and reprehensible.”

“The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight. But any suggestion that pre-war information was distorted, hyped, or fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false,” Mr. Cheney said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute.

As for proposals for a rapid pullout of American troops, Mr. Cheney said, “It is a dangerous illusion to suppose that another retreat by the civilized world would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone.” Nearly 160,000 American troops remain in Iraq.

Mr. Cheney ticked off a long list of terrorist attacks on American interests going back more than the two decades that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including the September 11, 2001, attacks and earlier ones in Beirut, Saudi Arabia, and Africa.

“Now they’re making a stand in Iraq, testing our resolve, trying to intimidate the United States into abandoning our friends and permitting the overthrow of this new Middle Eastern democracy,” Mr. Cheney said.

He said he respected the right of Mr. Murtha to form his own opinion. Mr. Murtha has served in Congress for three decades, is a decorated Marine combat veteran from Vietnam, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, and has long been an ardent defender of the armed forces.

“Nor is there any problem with debating whether the United States and its allies should have liberated Iraq in the first place,” Mr. Cheney said. “Nobody is saying we should not be having this discussion.”

But, Mr. Cheney added, “Those who advocate a sudden withdrawal from Iraq should answer a few simple questions,” including whether America would be “better off or worse off” with terror leaders such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, or Ayman al-Zawahiri in control.

Yesterday, Mr. Murtha defended his call to get out of Iraq, saying he was reflecting Americans’ sentiment.

“The public turned against this war before I said it,” Mr. Murtha said, speaking in his hometown of Johnstown, Pa. “The public is emotionally tied into finding a solution to this thing, and that’s what I hope this administration is going to find out.”

The administration has been toning down its criticism of Mr. Murtha since White House spokesman Scott McClellan derided him last week as an ultra-liberal, likening him to activist far-left filmmaker Michael Moore.

The Iraq debate has turned more vitriolic in recent days, with the Senate voting overwhelmingly to require fuller reporting by the administration on progress, and with Mr. Murtha’s proposal. That brought sharp criticism from the White House and led to a tumultuous late-night House floor fight when the GOP leaders forced a vote on an immediate pullout measure in hopes of trapping Democrats. It was rejected 403-3.