Cheney and his Dictionary

Last month, Cheney made news by asserting that the Iraqi insurgency is in its "final throes."

On Thursday, he said:
"If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a, you know, a violent period, the throes of a revolution. The point would be that the conflict will be intense, but it's intense because the terrorists understand if we're successful at accomplishing our objective, standing up a democracy in Iraq, that that's a huge defeat for them.
"They'll do everything they can to stop it."

Apparantly, Cheney thought the controversy was about the word "throes," hence the dictionary reference. But what was disputed was the word "final." I don't think anyone needs to look up the word "final" in the Dictionary.