WASHINGTON:
Former US vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday defended America's now-banned programme that tortured al-Qaeda suspects, praising the CIA operatives who ran it as heroes. "I'm perfectly comfortable that they should be praised, they should be decorated," the right-hand man to former president George W. Bush told NBC television's Meet the Press programme, adding, "I'd do it again in a minute."
Cheney said there is "no comparison" between the tactics and the deaths of American citizens on September 11, 2001. "Torture is what the al-Qaeda terrorists did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11," Cheney said. "There is no comparison between that and what we did with respect to enhanced interrogation."
He said he was unfazed that many of the foreign nationals rounded up and held for years, including those tortured, eventually were found not to be terrorists.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 15th, 2014.
COMMENTS (4)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
@Sexton Blake: so true. but incidents like the Peshawar attack really make me think again. some people actually deserve the worst torture. they deserve every bit of it. poor children RIP.
The fact that people such as Mr Cheney are allowed to run a country is very disturbing
"...unfazed that many of the foreign nationals rounded up and held for years, including those tortured, eventually were found not to be terrorists..."
The fact he is unfazed, unremorseful and would do it again describes the barbaric values held by this same country that brutalised Black slaves, Indigenous Indians and more recently justified the shooting of Blacks by the Police Force.
The debate is not and must not be if useful information was received or not, the Question is how can you ever justify TORTURE. Sheikh Khalid Mohammed has been DROWNED (water boarded) 183 times, deprived of sleep for over 180 hours, left in a box for over 7 days ……. By any description this is torture.
He is right. Every one of these guys need to spend at least a decade to cure them.