Liz Cheney Claims Her Father Would Never ‘Substitute His Own Judgment’ For The CIA’s »
Last month, after President Obama released Bush-era legal memos authorizing torture, McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay reported that former Vice President Dick Cheney “applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime.” Earlier this week, former NBC News investigative producer Robert Windrem reported for The Daily Beast that in 2003, “Cheney’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner, a former intelligence official for Saddam Hussein, who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection.”
Last month, after President Obama released Bush-era legal memos authorizing torture, McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay reported that former Vice President Dick Cheney “applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime.” Earlier this week, former NBC News investigative producer Robert Windrem reported for The Daily Beast that in 2003, “Cheney’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner, a former intelligence official for Saddam Hussein, who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection.”
On ABC’s This Week Sunday, Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, responded to the allegations by pointing to a report yesterday in which intelligence officials “denied that the questioning on Iraq had included waterboarding.” Asked, however, if she denied that Cheney’s office asked “to have information about Iraq-al Qaeda connections presented” to the Iraqi detainee, Cheney did not outright deny it:
STEPHANOPOLOUS: You’ve explained one part of it, I just want to ask you to explain another part of it. The report though that the vice president’s office did ask specifically to have information about Iraq-al Qaeda connections presented to this detainee, do you deny that?
CHENEY: I think that it’s important for us to have all the facts out. And and, the first and most important fact is that the vice president has been absolutely clear that he supported this program, this was an important program, it saved American lives. Now, the way this policy worked internally was once the policy was determined and decided, the CIA, you know, made the judgments about how each individual detainee would be treated. And the Vice President would not substitute his own judgment for the professional judgment of the CIA.
STEPHANOPOLOUS: You’ve explained one part of it, I just want to ask you to explain another part of it. The report though that the vice president’s office did ask specifically to have information about Iraq-al Qaeda connections presented to this detainee, do you deny that?
CHENEY: I think that it’s important for us to have all the facts out. And and, the first and most important fact is that the vice president has been absolutely clear that he supported this program, this was an important program, it saved American lives. Now, the way this policy worked internally was once the policy was determined and decided, the CIA, you know, made the judgments about how each individual detainee would be treated. And the Vice President would not substitute his own judgment for the professional judgment of the CIA.
The Chris Matthews Show: Has Cheney Influenced Obama's National Security Decisions?
FINEMAN: With Dick Cheney, it’s hard to separate the apocalyptic from the political, and he really believes that Obama was out, from the first day in office, to dismantle what Bush and Chemey had done, on tribunals, on Guantanamo, on enhanced interrogations techniques. He took it as a personal affront as well as a danger to the country. So he’s fighting back on it on a personal level and has been practically from Day One.
MATTHEWS: Well, you say on a personal level, but is this to help Obama or to hurt him?
FINEMAN: Well, he thinks it’s to hurt Obama, and thereby, make the country safer. I don’t think anybody questions his belief in the efficacy of the policies that he, Cheney, put in. It’s just everybody else in the world who has questions about whether those policies in fact did make us safer.
FINEMAN: With Dick Cheney, it’s hard to separate the apocalyptic from the political, and he really believes that Obama was out, from the first day in office, to dismantle what Bush and Chemey had done, on tribunals, on Guantanamo, on enhanced interrogations techniques. He took it as a personal affront as well as a danger to the country. So he’s fighting back on it on a personal level and has been practically from Day One.
MATTHEWS: Well, you say on a personal level, but is this to help Obama or to hurt him?
FINEMAN: Well, he thinks it’s to hurt Obama, and thereby, make the country safer. I don’t think anybody questions his belief in the efficacy of the policies that he, Cheney, put in. It’s just everybody else in the world who has questions about whether those policies in fact did make us safer.
Pelosi Must Provide Proof or Apology on CIA Memo, Boehner Says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should provide proof of her allegation that the Central Intelligence Agency misled her about terrorism-related interrogation tactics or apologize for her accusations, Republican leaders said. "If the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said on CNN’s "State of the Union” today. "If that’s not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence officials."
1 comment:
Liz Cheney is one lost soul. Her Dad is one of the most evil men in the world, if not number 1, her Mom is too busy doing whatever it is she does (besides being one of the first to write a Lesbian love story)
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