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03/28/2024 10:07:55 am

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Cheney Defiant On CIA Report: "I Would Do It Again In A Minute"

Cheney Defiant on CIA Report

(Photo : Reuters) Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is pictured in the audience at the dedication ceremony for the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, April 25, 2013.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney minced no words on Sunday in defending the CIA's extreme interrogation techniques on detainees following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, stressing, "I would do it again in a minute."

A recently released Senate report detailing CIA interrogation tactics drew flak from critics who claimed the methods are torture.

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But Cheney was quick to deny a "moral equivalence" between the CIA's grilling methods and the actions of terrorists.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Cheney pointed out that, with respect to trying to define the techniques as torture, the real torture was the death of thousands of Americans in the hands of al Qaeda terrorists on 9/11. He ruled out any comparison between the attacks on New York's twin towers and what was done with enhanced interrogation.

Cheney said the report was "seriously flawed," adding the analysis of the paper was performed in a partisan manner and it was released without interviewing anyone who were connected with the program.

"It was based on, done only by, Democratic staff. It's very, very poor piece of work. It should not be used to judge the agency or the program," the former vice president told CNN.

Cheney also rejected the report's conclusions that former President George W. Bush was unaware of the techniques taking place. He said the interrogation tactics had Bush's blessings and called details in the report about the authorization a "lie."

He stressed that the President did authorize the program with an approval from the Justice Department. "It worked," Cheney said. 

He also believed the involuntary rectal feeding and hydration tactic revealed in the report are merely medical procedures, despite health experts finding the methods as medically unjustified and ineffective.

He concluded that the methods used in the program do not meet the criteria of what is considered torture.

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