Cheney:"For a while there, I was criticized as being the 'vice-president for torture'"

[dajoki]

MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15431835/from/RS.1/

Cheney endorses simulated drowning
Calls use of water boarding a ‘no-brainer’ to get intelligence on terrorists

By Demetri Sevastopulo
Updated: 30 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Dick Cheney, US vice-president, has endorsed the use of "water boarding" for terror suspects and confirmed that the controversial interrogation technique was used on Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the senior al-Qaeda operative now being held at Guantánamo Bay.

Cheney was responding to a conservative radio interviewer who asked whether water boarding, which involves simulated drowning, was a "no-brainer" if the information it yielded would save American lives. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney replied.

The comments by the vice-president, who has been one of the leading advocates of reducing limitations on what interrogation techniques can be used in the war on terror, are the first public confirmation that water boarding has been used on suspects held in US custody.

"For a while there, I was criticized as being the 'vice-president for torture'," Cheney added. "We don't torture ... We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth.

"But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture and we need to be able to do that."

[zulchzulu]

1. Cheney's karmic demise upped a little bit more...

For a draft-dodging, treasonous, crosseyed-hunting, war-profiteering Nixon stooge, it's excellent to know that he has a bum ticker. Tick....tick....tick....Dick.

[calimary]

3. Oh, dearest God, PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE!!! Bring on the karma!

PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE!!! I'm on my KNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ!!!

[waiting for hope]

2. and the spin goes on and on.....

Asshole - I'm getting sick of hearing that madman speak.

[gordianot]

4. Do these people ever think before they utter obvious nonsense?

I did not do it because I say I did not do it. This is a common trait of preschoolers.

[rubberducky]

5. Does this mean that when he is impeached......

we can "robustly" interrorgate him??? Please, please, please!!! On national tv in prime time!!!

[schmuls]

6. May we please water-board him (it isn't torture) so he confesses

all the dirty secrets of Halliburton?

[whosinpower]

7. Still a stupid question

Why not just ask this - Is waterboarding considered torture?

And insofar as the US does not torture--BULLSH**. We all saw the Abu Ghraib photo's. and we also now know that the US uses extraordinary rendition to get around the torture gambit....re - Maher Arar.

[valerief]

8. I think we'll be seeing waterboarding on Fear Factor or some stupid

show like that soon.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. What part of "waterboarding is torture" does he not understand

No less of an authority that the Spanish Inquisition said so centuries years ago.


Here's What Left

[Sequoia]

10. For a while? You still are pal.

[dajoki]

12. VP of torture...

and in the next breath: "We don't torture ... We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. What's the so forth?

[Sequoia]

13. You're tiny photo there:

Hell yes, we need our own FDR and a NEW DEAL!!!

[dajoki]

14. Yes, we sure do n/t

[Sequoia]

19. Cartoon for you (from 10-27 DU)

[dajoki]

21. I coud see Limpballs actually doing that n/t

[gratuitous]

15. Ditto

I don't understand Cheney's use of the past tense, either. Just because your pals in Congress have declared that what you're doing isn't torture doesn't magically transform it. You're still a latter day Torquemada, Mr. Cheney. And you'll be remembered just as fondly in all those future history books Mr. Bush likes to imagine are going to be written about him and his corrupt administration.

[dajoki]

17. They will be written...

but I doubt if our *president* will like what they say.

[LeftishBrit]

11. He is pure evil.

And, in his own words, he is the vice president for torture.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. Right. Simulated drowning isn't torture.

It's "Campus Hijinx".

[TankLV]

18. No - it's still getting HOTTER, not "for a while" but for a WHOLE LOT LONGER...

get used to it you fucking WAR CRIMINAL!

[BelgianMadCow]

20. ...luckily, we retroactively got it rubberstamped!

Hurrah for robust coercion programs!

Now watch my pipeline.

[grateful581]

22. man this pisses me off

I see that tony snowjob is trying to deny what CHENEY SAID LIVE ON THE AIR! WTF are these guys thinking.
Honestly the whitehouse thinks americans are stupid.

Recording devices = republicans worst enemy.