TPMMuckraker Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Cheney: Tenet Resigned 'When The Going Got Tough' (VIDEO)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney
Former Vice President Dick Cheney in his forthcoming book accuses former CIA Director George Tenet of being unfair to President George W. Bush by resigning in 2004 "when the going got tough."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Bush, Bush Administration, Dick Cheney, George Tenet
Dick Cheney
Cheney Okay With Limiting High-Capacity Magazines In Wake Of Giffords Shooting (VIDEO)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney is no gun control advocate. In fact, as Rachel Maddow pointed out in a recent segment, he was one of only a couple members of the House of Representatives who voted against a ban on plastic guns back in the 1980s and is a regular at meetings of the National Rifle Association.
But in the wake of the mass shooting in Arizona that gravely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and killed six others, even Cheney indicated he's support restrictions on high-capacity magazines such as the clip allegedly used by Jared Lee Loughner.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Topics: Dick Cheney, Frank Lautenberg, Gabby Giffords, Gabrielle Giffords, Gun Control, Gun Rights, Guns, High-Capacity Magazines, Jared Lee Loughner, Jared Loughner, NRA, Tucson Shootings
War on Terror
Cheney: 'All Well And Good' That Obama's Using Our Tactics Now (VIDEO)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney (R)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview that President Obama has finally learned to use Bush administration tactics in the War on Terror.
"I think he's found it necessary to be more sympathetic to the kinds of things we did," Cheney said on the Today Show, noting Obama's use of drones in Pakistan and elsewhere.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Topics: Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Drones, Guantanamo, Torture, War on Terror, Wiretapping
George Bush
Watchdog Report: Bush Aides Didn't Care About Threat To Emails
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and Former President George W. Bush.
Aides to President George W. Bush weren't troubled by the threat, due to a tech glitch, of losing millions of emails -- the preservation of which is required by federal law.
According to a new report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Vice President Cheney and others ignored warnings that, with no viable archive system in place, emails could be lost as the White House switched to the Microsoft Exchange email system in 2002. White House Counsel Harriet Miers even rejected a 2005 plan to restore the emails, according to the report.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Dick Cheney, George Bush, Harriet Miers, White House Documents
Gulf Coast Oil Spill
BP Hires Former Dick Cheney Spox To Run PR Ops
Former Vice President Dick Cheney
BP, struggling to maintain its image while taking responsibility for the worst oil disaster in U.S. history, has hired someone new to head its American public relations operation: Anne Womack-Kolton, the former campaign press secretary for Vice President Dick Cheney.
Womack-Kolton ran Cheney's press shop during the 2004 campaign, and worked as an assistant press secretary in 2000. She was also an assistant in the White House press office.
She begins today, the BP press office tells TPM.
In the private sector, she's worked for the Brunswick Group and APCO Worldwide.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)Topics: Anne Womack-Kolton, BP, Dick Cheney, Gulf Coast Oil Spill
Eric Massa
Massa To Esquire: Cheney And Petraeus Discussed 'A Coup D'Etat'
Former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY)
In a new Esquire profile, beleaguered former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) claims to have inside knowledge of a series of secret meetings between General David Petraeus and Dick Cheney in which the former Vice President encouraged Petraeus to run for President. If Petraeus had been successful, Massa says, it would have been "the functional equivalent of the political overthrow of the commander in chief."
The profile also paints Massa (D-NY) as a somewhat frustrated and pathetic figure, "a disgrace in moccasins," who tried to kill himself twice following allegations that he had sexually harassed staffers.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)Topics: David Petraeus, Dick Cheney, Eric Massa, New York
Gulf Coast Oil Spill
Halliburton Role On Oil Rig Puts Firm Under Scrutiny Once Again
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig on fire before it sank, and a sign at a Halliburton plant (inset)
Halliburton is back.
The Houston energy services giant once led by Dick Cheney became the corporate bête noire of the Bush years as one of the biggest (and most troubled) Iraq War contractors. But the company had largely faded from public view since President Obama entered office -- until now.
As the provider of crucial cementing services on the oil rig that exploded and set off the massive spill in the Gulf, Halliburton finds itself under scrutiny once again.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (11)Topics: BP, Deepwater Horizon, Dick Cheney, Gulf Coast Oil Spill, Halliburton, Henry Waxman, Minerals Management Service, TransOcean LTD.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Cheney, Ridge Pioneered Miranda Attack On Obama
Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Former Vice President Dick Cheney
It turns out that the criticism surrounding the decision to read Miranda rights to the attempted Christmas bombing suspect didn't originally come from any office-holding Republican.
Rather, it was pioneered by Tom Ridge and Dick Cheney in the days after Christmas, and only later picked up by members of Congress like Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO).
With the heated Obama-GOP back-and-forth this week over the Mirandizing of Umar Abdulmutallab, we decided to look back at the facts of what happened, and when critics pounced on the issue.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (15)Topics: Dick Cheney, Kit Bond, Miranda rights, Northwest Flight 253, Pete Hoekstra, Tom Ridge, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
John Yoo
Yoo: I've Never Met Bush
John Yoo
George W. Bush, you say? Never heard of him.
That's the tack that Torture Memo author John Yoo seems to take in a new interview with Deborah Solomon of The New York Times Magazine.
The parley was to promote Yoo's new book, Crisis and Command, which the Times describes as "an eloquent, fact-laden history of audacious power grabs by American presidents going back to George Washington" -- a subject with which Yoo, who was a lawyer in the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, has some familiarity.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Topics: Dick Cheney, George Bush, John Yoo, Justice Department, Torture
George Bush
Obama Administration Will Restore Missing Bush White House Emails
George W. Bush
The White House has announced a settlement in a lawsuit filed by two good-government groups concerning emails that went missing over a two-and-a-half year period during the Bush administration.
Under the terms of the deal, 94 days of emails -- which could shed light on controversial topics that the Bush administration sought to obscure from public view, such as the Valerie Plame scandal and the run-up to the war in Iraq -- will be transferred to the National Archives, and eventually made public.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (8)Topics: Barack Obama, CREW, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Iraq, Iraq War, Valerie Plame
Dick Cheney
Did Cheney Deceive FBI On Instructions To Libby?
Former Vice President Dick Cheney
Most reactions to the release of Dick Cheney's 2004 interview with FBI investigators on the Valerie Plame affair have focused on the numerous instances in which the then-vice president claimed a faulty memory about events that had occurred less than a year before.
But did Cheney at one point all but lie under oath about whether he directed Lewis Libby to give Judith Miller information from a government report on Saddam's alleged efforts to procure uranium from Africa?
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Iraq, Judy Miller, Scooter Libby, Valerie Plame
Dick Cheney
Don't Even Point! Cheney's Extreme View Of Presidential Privilege
Former Vice President Dick Cheney
It's not news that Dick Cheney takes an expansive view of executive privilege. But one passage from the just released Plame interview documents makes clear just how far he took it.
When asked if he ever advised Libby that the president had decided to declassify the NIE, the vice president declined to answer in view of his concerns about sharing potentially privileged conversations between himself and the President. it was clarified for the Vice President that he was not being asked to comment on the substance of his conversations with the President, but rather, only whether he'd ever told Libby that he'd had such a discussion with the President. In response, Vice President Cheney repeated his assertion that he must refrain from commenting to the investigators about any private and/or privileged conversations he may have had with the President.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)
Topics: Dick Cheney, George Bush, Scooter Libby
Dick Cheney
Cheney Wanted McClellan To Exonerate Libby As Well As Rove
Former Vice President Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney told FBI investigators he wasn't happy when Scott McClelllan, then the White House press secretary, publicly told reporters that Karl Rove wasn't the source of the Plame leak.
From the just-released documents:
The Vice President was not happy about it, as it appeared that the White House press office was putting down markers for some individuals and not for others. Specifically, Vice President Cheney believed that fairness dictated that similar disqualifying statements should be made to the media on behalf of Libby and Elliot Abrams of the NSC, both of whom were the speculative targets of leak allegations by the media that week.
In other words, Cheney wanted Libby and Abrams exonerated in addition to Rove.
Of course, we now know that both Rove and Libby did leak Plame's name to reporters, though not to Novak.
Topics: Dick Cheney, Elliot Abrams, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Scott McClellan, Valerie Plame
Dick Cheney
Cheney: Sending Wilson To Niger Was "Amateur Hour" At The CIA
Dick Cheney told FBI investigators that his response to hearing that Joe Wilson had been sent to Niger to assess whether Saddam had tried to buy yellow-cake was that it was "amateur hour" at the CIA.
That's according to a summary of the FBI's interview with Cheney, which was conducted as part of Pat Fitzgerald's investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame's name. The document was just released by the Justice Department, thanks to a lawsuit by CREW.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (11)Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Joe Wilson, Pat Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame
Jack Abramoff
Ashcroft Aide Pleads The Fifth In Trial Of Abramoff Crony
CEO of Ashcroft Group David Ayres
We told you it was likely to happen. And now it has.
John Ashcroft's top aide from the Justice Department has pleaded the fifth in the trial of a member of Team Abramoff.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Topics: David Ayres, Dick Cheney, Jack Abramoff, John Ashcroft, Justice Department, Kevin Ring, Lobbyists
Dick Cheney
Feds Probing Gale Norton For Corruption: LAT
Fmr. US Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton
Did Gale Norton, President Bush's far-right interior secretary, illegally use her position to benefit an oil company that later hired her? Justice Department investigators want to know, reports the Los Angeles Times.
In a nutshell, here's what DOJ is looking into:
Topics: Dick Cheney, Gale Norton, Interior Department, Italia Federici, Jack Abramoff, Justice Department, Oil, Steven Griles
John Ashcroft
Top Ashcroft Aide May Plead Fifth In Trial Of Abramoff Crony
CEO of Ashcroft Group David Ayres
Did the Abramoff scandal extend into the highest reaches of the Justice Department?
John Ashcroft's chief of staff at DOJ may plead the fifth in the trial of Kevin Ring, the Team Abramoff operative accused of bribing lawmakers and public officials, according to court documents.
A motion filed this week by Ring's lawyers and examined by TPMmuckraker states:
Counsel for Mr. Ayres and counsel for Ms. Ayres [Ayres's wife] have indicated that each would invoke their Fifth Amendment privilege if subpoeaned.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (7)
Topics: David Ayres, Dick Cheney, Jack Abramoff, John Ashcroft, Justice Department, Kevin Ring, Lobbyists
Torture
Whitehouse: Torture Probe Should Look At Bush Officials
Another top Democrat has come out in support of the view that the torture investigation announced by the Justice Department shouldn't be limited to CIA personnel.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a former federal prosecutor who sits on the Judiciary committee, suggested in an article (sub. req.) for the National Law Journal that the probe should extend to:
Topics: David Addington, Dick Cheney, Eric Holder, John Conyers, John Yoo, Justice Department, Russ Feingold, Sheldon Whitehouse, Torture
Torture
ACLU Lawyer: Torture Probe Too Narrowly Focused
Earlier today, Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU went on MSNBC, and made a crucial point about the decision to probe torture.
The problem, argued Jaffer, is not that we're investigating clear evidence of law-breaking -- as Dick Cheney and countless conservatives would have it. Rather, it's that the scope of the investigation, as we've noted, appears to be unduly narrow. As things stand, it focuses on CIA personnel, but ignores the Bush administration officials -- both Justice Department lawyers like John Yoo, and high-ranking policy-makers like Cheney himself -- who authorized and approved torture in the first place.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (4)Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, John Yoo, Justice Department, Torture
John Conyers
Who Will Torture Probe Look At? Justice Dept. Won't Say
Attorney General Eric Holder
There's a critical unanswered question about the torture investigation -- or "preliminary review" announced yesterday by Attorney General Eric Holder. And the Justice Department doesn't seem eager to clear it up.
Who, exactly, is to be investigated?
Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Eric Holder, Jay Bybee, John Conyers, John Yoo, Justice Department, Russ Feingold, Torture
Torture
Madeleine Albright: Cheney's Statements Are 'Pathetic'
Former Sec. of State Madeline Albright
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told CNN today that former Vice President Cheney's statements about the DOJ's investigation into interrogation techniques "are kind of pathetic."
"He should know that the Obama administration is doing everything they can to keep American secure," Albright said. "That is the major job of the president of the United States and his appointees, and I feel very confident that is taking place."
Albright is apparently referring to Cheney's response to the investigation. The decision "serves as a reminder, if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this Administration's ability to be responsible for our nation's security," he said last night.
Albright also said she's not an expert on interrogation, but cited experts, included Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who say torture doesn't produce results. She said we need "to operate in a way that's reflective of America's values and our rule of law."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (6)Topics: Dick Cheney, Eric Holder, Torture
Dick Cheney
Cheney Spin On CIA Memos Befuddles Politico
Former Vice President Dick Cheney
If we're going to have a discussion about torture and the CIA memos -- and it's not at all clear that we are -- it's worth reporting the positions of the interlocutors accurately.
Unfortunately, Politico today fell into a semantic trap set by Dick Cheney in his response to the declassification of the memos, which Cheney himself had sought.
Here's what Cheney said in a statement:
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (15)Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Media, Torture
Dick Cheney
Big Surprise: Torture Memos Belie Cheney's Claims
Former Vice President Dick Cheney
It's hardly news that Dick Cheney isn't likely to win any prizes for honesty any time soon. But yesterday offered yet another exhibit in the case.
During the debate over torture this spring, Cheney claimed that CIA memos, which he had asked to be declassified, would prove that torture proved effective in obtaining actionable intelligence.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (24)Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Torture
Barack Obama
Yet More Obama Secrecy: Won't Release Info On Visits From Health-Care Execs
And the beat goes on....
Here's the latest example of the Obama White House mimicking its predecessor's reflexive preference for secrecy over openness: the administration has turned down a request from a good-government group to release the names of the health-industry execs who have gone to the White House to discuss health-care reform, reports the Los Angeles Times.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (8)Topics: Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, George Bush, State Secrets
Leon Panetta
Congress To Probe Secret CIA Program
Rep. Silvestre Reyes, who chairs the House Intelligence committee, has announced an investigation into the secret CIA program that Leon Panetta recently ended, and which Dick Cheney reportedly ordered kept secret from Congress.
From Reyes's statement:
After careful consideration and consultation with the Ranking Minority Member and other members of the Committee, I am announcing an official Committee investigation into possible violations of federal law, including the National Security Act of 1974.This investigation will focus on the core issues of how the congressional intelligence committees and Congress are kept fully and currently informed. To this end, the investigation will examine several issues, including the program discussed during Director Panetta's June 24th notification and whether there was any official decision or direction to withold (sic) information from the Committee.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (5)
Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta
CIA
Report: CIA Assassin Program Could Operate Anywhere -- Even Inside U.S.
Since the news broke (sub. req.) at the start of the week that CIA director Leon Panetta had pulled the plug on a secret program to assassinate or capture al Qaeda leaders, we've been raising questions about one key aspect of the story. In particular, what was it about the program that was so shocking that Dick Cheney reportedly ordered it kept secret from Congress, Panetta quashed it as soon as he heard about it, and Congressional Democrats risked being painted as soft on terror by shrieking about being kept in the dark?
We may have gotten a good piece of the answer here: The Washington Post reports today on how the program had been revived and then put on hold several times since 2001. But it also says, referring to the "presidential finding" with which President Bush authorized the program in 2001:
Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta
Justice Department
Only Yoo: Report Details Bush White House Use Of Hand-Picked DOJ Lawyer To Justify Warrantless Wiretapping
The fact that John Yoo was the only Justice Department OLC official who was "read into" the surveillance program -- even though he wasn't the head of OLC at the time -- has already been noted by others looking through the inspectors general report on the program released last week.
But one excerpt from the report is worth paying particular attention to, since it underlines the special role that Yoo came to play on the White House's behalf.
Topics: Dick Cheney, Jay Bybee, John Ashcroft, John Yoo, Justice Department, Wiretapping
CIA
CIA Vet: Agency Doesn't Need Secret Program To Target al Qaeda
Earlier today, we raised a few questions about the notion that the secret CIA program that Dick Cheney reportedly withheld from Congress concerned an effort to kill or capture al Qaeda leaders. And now a top counter-terror expert is doing the same.
Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, told TPMmuckraker that because we've been in a state of war against al Qaeda since just after September 11, there would have been no need for a secret CIA program that received special legal authorization.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (39)Topics: CIA, Defense Department, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta
Barack Obama
Holder May Investigate Torture -- But Several Probes Are Already Underway
The pendulum appears to have swung back in the other direction on the issue of criminal investigations into Bush-era torture. It had looked for a while like President Obama's stated desire to look forward not back had carried the day. But now it appears that Attorney General Eric Holder -- independent of his boss's political concerns, which is how things should work -- is leaning back towards initiating a probe. The news was first reported over the weekend by Newsweek, then picked up today by the New York Times and Washington Post.
But whatever Holder ultimately decides, there are already several ongoing government efforts to investigate torture, which figure to substantially fill out our still patchwork understanding of the issue. So as we wait for official word from the Justice Department on a criminal inquiry, it's worth being clear about what those efforts are, and how they relate to each other.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (2)Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, CIA Tapes, DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility, Dick Cheney, Eric Holder, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Justice Department, Steven Bradbury, Torture
Dick Cheney
New Info Brings More Questions On Secret CIA Program
We've gotten some more information in recent days about that secret CIA program that the agency withheld key information from Congress about, and that CIA director Leon Panetta promptly shut down when he learned about it last month. But the new reports only raise more questions.
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that the CIA withheld information about the secret program "on direct orders" from then-Vice President Dick Cheney. The Times did not identify the program, but noted that, according to intelligence and congressional officials, it involved neither the CIA's interrogation program nor its domestic intelligence (e.g. warrantless wiretapping and surveillance) activities.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta
Barack Obama
More Obama Secrecy -- This Time On Cheney's Plame Interview
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at this point. But the latest example of the Obama administration mimicking the Bushies in opting for secrecy over openness feels like one of the most infuriating yet.
The Justice Department is declining to release Dick Cheney's interview with federal investigators looking into the Valerie Plame leak, arguing -- as it did under President Bush -- that doing so would discourage future high-level officials from cooperating with criminal investigations.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (26)Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, Detainees, Dick Cheney, Justice Department, Torture, Valerie Plame
Torture
Torture Advocates Mum On Whether They Support Waterboarding Roeder
For years now, torture supporters have been using the "ticking time-bomb" scenario to argue that it's irresponsible to issue a blanket ban on torture. If we knew that a bomb was set to explode imminently, goes the argument, and that torture could help obtain information to avert the disaster and save hundreds of lives, who wouldn't do it?
This has always borne more relation to an episode of 24 than to the actual war on terror. Even torture supporters have admitted that no such ticking time-bomb case has ever occurred. But it looks like we may now be confronted with a version of it in a very different context -- and this time, it's hard not to notice that those same torture supporters don't seem to be rushing to call for the waterboard just yet.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (16)Topics: Dick Cheney, Eric Holder, John Cornyn, Right-wing extremism, Scott Roeder, Torture
Alberto Gonzales
DOJ Torture Emails: How The Times Could Have Reported The Story
But the Times also, to its credit, released Comey's emails in full, allowing us all to make our own judgments about what they show. And after a close look at the emails, it seems clear that the paper could have used them to write a very different story -- with a very different effect on the public debate.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (53)Topics: Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Harriet Miers, Justice Department, Steven Bradbury, Torture
Dick Cheney
Cheney's Campaign To Keep Lawmakers In Line On Torture
The Washington Post reports today that, during 2005, Dick Cheney sat in on several of those CIA torture briefings, in an effort to persuade wavering lawmakers to keep backing the torture program.
The news doesn't really come as a shock -- indeed, some close observers had already guessed that the then-veep was involved in the briefings. But it does add to the picture of Cheney embarking during the middle years of the Bush administration on a focused, stealthy campaign to make sure the US didn't give up what he saw as its right to torture.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (11)Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Intelligence, Torture
Dick Cheney
Levin: Cheney "Bore False Witness" On Torture
Over at TPMDC, we posted video of a speech given Wednesday night by Sen. Carl Levin, in which he pushed back against Dick Cheney's no-middle-ground approach to torture.
But one specific rebuttal of Levin's that particularly stood out, in part because not enough people have challenged Cheney's claim, comes at the 3:53 mark.
Says Levin:
When former Vice President Cheney said last week that what happened at Abu Ghraib was the work of a quote few sadistic prison guards acting on their own, he bore false witness.And when he said last week there was no link between the techniques at Abu Ghraib and those approved for use in the CIA's secret prisons, he again strayed from the truth.
The seeds of Abu Ghraib's rotten fruit were sown by civilians at the highest levels of our government.
Hard to put it better than that.
Watch:
Topics: Dick Cheney, Torture
CIA
How Cheney Turned A Right-Wing Meme Mainstream
It looks like we've figured out what Dick Cheney meant when he said President Obama has "reserved unto himself" the right to order enhanced interrogation techniques.
In February the Wall Street Journal reported (sub. req.) :
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, Dick Cheney, Torture
Dick Cheney
Cheney Still Pushing Bogus Saddam-Al Qaeda Link
Here's something else that's noteworthy from Cheney's speech. He again falsely implied that Saddam was working with al Qaeda:
We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.
It's unclear which "Mideast terrorists" those were. After all, Saddam had for over 30 years been the leader of a major Mideast country. It would be surprising if you couldn't find that he had "ties" to terrorists of some kind. But Cheney's purpose in bringing it up is clearly to suggest that Saddam had meaningful connections to the terrorists who hit us on 9/11. That's long been known to be a lie.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (3)Topics: Dick Cheney, Iraq
Dick Cheney
Was Cheney Talking About Obama's Executive Order?
We asked earlier about what Dick Cheney might have been referring to when he said President Obama had reserved the right to order enhanced interrogation when he deems it appropriate.
Could Cheney have been referring to this passage from Obama's executive order on interrogations?
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (1)Topics: Barack Obama, CIA, Dick Cheney, Torture
Torture
What Did Cheney Mean That Obama Has Reserved Right To Torture?
We were struck by one excerpt from Cheney's speech:
This might explain why President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to order the use of enhanced interrogation should he deem it appropriate. What value remains to that authority is debatable, given that the enemy now knows exactly what interrogation methods to train against, and which ones not to worry about. Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It's almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (9)
Topics: Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Torture
Dick Cheney
Cheney: Even Arguing About Torture is Helping Terrorists
Here's maybe the most radical argument of an extremely radical speech:
And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for - our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (12)
Topics: Dick Cheney, Torture
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