CathNews New Zealand

Former US vice-president, Dick Cheney says torturing captured al-Qaids leaders was a necessary step in capturing Osama bin Laden.

Speaking ahead of ceremonies to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Cheney said “enhanced interrogation” produced “phenomenal” results, and he rejected the use of torture undermined the moral authority of the United States.

Cheney dismissed President Obama’s investigations in the legality of US use of torture, labelling them as “objectionable” and a “terrible precedent.”

“The notion that somehow the United States was wildly torturing anybody is not true,” he said.

“One of the most controversial techniques is waterboarding … Three people were waterboarded. Not dozens, not hundreds. Three. And the one who was subjected the most often to that was Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and it produced phenomenal results for us.”

Waterboarding Mohammed “helped produce the intelligence that allowed us to get Osama bin Laden”, he said.

“It was out of the enhanced interrogation techniques that some of the leads came that ultimately produced the result when President Obama was able to send in Seal Team 6 to kill Bin Laden.”

“They’ve been successful in part because of the capabilities we left them with, the intelligence we left them with, because of what we learned from men like Khaled Sheikh Mohammed back when he was subjected. I think it’s a mistake not to have an enhanced interrogation programme available now. I don’t know what they would do today if they captured the equivalent of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.”

Earlier this week, Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, repudiated the use of waterboarding as torture and illegal even if, she said, it did produce valuable intelligence.

“It is a sadness and worse that the previous government of our great ally, the United States, chose to waterboard some detainees. The argument that life-saving intelligence was thereby obtained, and I accept that it was, still does not justify it,” she said.

“Torture should be utterly rejected even when it may offer the prospect of saving lives”.

Defending waterboardsing, Cheney said the US used it in training its operatives so it could not be that bad.

Cheney said very member of the national security council, including Cheney critic and former secretary of state, Colin Powell was informed of the decision and signed up to it.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Associated Press (Video)
• Image: Red Ice Creations

 

Additional reading

• Cheney talks about the Bush Adminstration's Counterterrorism Efforts
• The Cheney doctrine says shoot first, think up excuses later
• Waterboarding under Bush still keeps us safe under Obama
• Colin Powell regrets Iraq war intelligence

News category: World.