Quote:
“There are two documents in particular that I personally have read and know about that are still classified in that National Archives," Cheney said. "But I’ve asked that they be de-classified; I made that request over a month ago on March 31st. What those documents show is the success, especially of the interrogation program in terms of what it produced by way of intelligence that let us track down members of Al-Qaeda and disrupt their plans and plots to strike the United States. It’s all there in black and white…It demonstrates conclusively the worth of those programs. As I say, I’ve asked the administration to de-classify them and so far they have not.”
Hennen reminded Cheney of Obama’s recent statements that waterboarding and other practices were unnecessary and “we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.”
Cheney responded, “Well, I don’t believe that’s true. That assumes that we didn’t try other ways, and in fact we did. We resorted, for example, to waterboarding, which is the source of much of the controversy…with only three individuals. In those cases, it was only after we’d gone through all the other steps of the process. The way the whole program was set up was very careful, to use other methods and only to resort to something like the enhanced techniques in those special circumstances.”
Cheney also aired disturbed feelings about the calls for the prosecutions of Bush administration officials over torture.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he said. “And talk about putting a wet blanket on anybody in government’s willingness to be bold in their recommendations and so forth. Just forget that.”
He warned that such action would have future consequences.
“Anybody who sees that kind of thing happen is going to pull their head in, and they’ll be reluctant to take responsibility for anything," he said, adding, "I hear this talk that there is going to be some kind of foreign prosecution of our guys, I just think that’s abhorrent, and I think they ought to do everything they can to fight that.”
Full article:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/05/07/1926056.aspxAdditional article:
Cheney: Spanish torture probe 'abhorrent'http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/cheney-spanish-torture-probe-abhorrent/
