Problem with Synaptic Package Manager

[Andrew P. Burgess]

When I try to open Synaptic Package Manager I get the following error message:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
E:_cache->open() failed, please report.

I put 'dpkg --configure -a' into a terminal, and got this message:

dpkg: requested operation requires superuser privilege'

I'm pretty new to Linux, I'd appreciate help on figuring out what to do. I'm running Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon as a virtual machine with VirtualBox. 
Thanks,
Andrew
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