Remorseless: Cheney says CIA interrogators heroes not torturers
Cheney says there is "no comparison" between the tactics and the deaths of American citizens on September 11, 2001
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."
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.
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.