Cheney ‘OK’ With Violating Felony Torture Statute

Well, of course he is. Cheney is an embarrassment to all decent Americans who understand that violations of the Constitution and various treaties we have signed onto (and pressured other nations to sign onto) has nothing to do with Al Qaeda and their heinous acts of terrorism.

What a policy of torture does is give us a black-eye on the world stage, cause more hatred of the U.S. among people who did hate us before and hatred among those who did not hate us before Vice was seen begging Congress for permission to keep torturing people and cause our allies to distrust us.

Cheney should be the first man in the Dock at the Hague, since it is becoming more and more evident that we do not seem to be morally capable of holding our own war criminals accountable.


Submitted by Chip on Sun, 2009-08-30 11:05.

• Criminal Prosecution and Accountability
• Evidence
• Military Industrial Complex
• Obama Administration
• Torture

By Muriel Kane | Raw Story

In an interview with Fox News to be aired this Sunday, former Vice President Dick Cheney said he is “OK” with CIA interrogations that violated Justice Department guidelines and condemned the prospect of any investigation of abuses as potentially “devastating” to morale.


The 2004 Inspector General’s report released on Monday cited numerous cases of possible violations of the felony torture statute, which prohibits both “the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering” and “the threat of imminent death.”


Beginning on page 69 of the report (pdf) is a list of “Specific Unauthorized or Undocumented Techniques,” in some of which the facts “warranted criminal investigations.” Among the cases cited are one in which a CIA officer repeatedly choked a shackled prisoner until he almost passed out and several examples of mock executions. These are the cases that Cheney is now defending.


“The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, ‘How did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time?’” Cheney stated. “Instead, they’re out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions.”

Does Cheney mean the lawyers who would basically find it within the law for the president to commit murder if he wanted to? Does he mean the lawyers who would have found it within the law to round up political opposition within the voting public and charge them with being supporters of terrorism or simply disappear them without charges or their right to an attorney?


Calling the extreme interrogation techniques “absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives,” Cheney insisted, “It was good policy, it was properly carried out, it worked very, very well.”

Cheney has consistently asserted that when reports on the interrogations are released, they will show that torture of detainees worked. However, recently declassified documents show no such thing.

For example, Cheney’s claim that “the individuals subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided the bulk of the intelligence we gained about Al Qaeda” does not necessarily mean that any usable intelligence resulted from the use of torture on those individuals rather than more conventional techniques.


What Vice means is that torture got information they specifically wanted, whether true or not.

As Raw Story reported two days ago, even a former homeland security adviser to President Bush has admitted that “it’s very difficult to draw a cause and effect, because it’s not clear when techniques were applied versus when that information was received.”

Cheney further described Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to proceed with a probe of detainee abuse as an “outrageous political act.” He blamed President Obama for “trying to duck the responsibility of what’s going on here” when he indicated that the decision was the attorney general’s to make. Read more.

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