Kansas City, Mo. ? Despite the apparent halt of Iran’s nuclear weapons program four years ago, Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday that Iran remained a “concern” to the United States because it continued to enrich uranium and was still on Washington’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Speaking to veterans at the National World War I Museum on the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Cheney urged U.S. allies to keep pressure on Tehran’s government to “come clean about all its nuclear activities, past and present.”

“Not everyone understands the threat of nuclear proliferation, in Iran or elsewhere,” Cheney told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

“But we and our allies do understand the threat, and we have a duty to prevent it.”

They were his first public remarks about Iran since Monday’s release of a National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The report was a major reversal of a 2005 NIE that concluded that Iran was “determined” to develop nuclear weapons despite the threat of international sanctions.

While Iran has halted its nuclear weapons drive, the new NIE says, it could resume its quest and it has the scientific, technical and industrial capabilities to produce nuclear weapons eventually.

Cheney’s remarks echoed comments that President Bush made at a White House news conference Tuesday, emphasizing that the administration isn’t going to ease the pressure on Iran regardless of the new NIE conclusions.

“Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” Bush said.

Since the release of the NIE, administration officials have been scrambling to hold together a coalition of key U.S. allies who feared that Tehran was close to developing a nuclear weapon.

“Our concern is shared within the international community, including key powers seeking to solve the Iranian nuclear issue in the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France and Germany,” Cheney told the VFW. “Together, we must keep the pressure on Iran to stop enriching uranium, and to come clean about all its nuclear activities, past and present.”

The coalition showed some fraying this week when China’s ambassador to the United Nations said that Beijing might not support a third resolution on sanctions against Iran.