presstv
Former US vice president Dick Cheney has defended the use of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency ahead of the release of a new Senate report on the agency’s controversial program.
In a phone interview with the New York Times on Monday, he said the program was “the right thing to do, and if I had to do it over again, I would do it.”
“When we had that program in place, we kept the country safe from any more mass casualty attacks, which was our objective,” Cheney said.
He made the remarks after the White House announced that a summary of the report would be released on Tuesday.
Under the administration of former president George W. Bush, the CIA used harsh “interrogation techniques” against the suspected terrorists following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The report is set to criticize the program and accuse the CIA of misleading American lawmakers about the value of the practices in obtaining information.
Cheney also noted that the reported conclusion by the Senate Intelligence Committee that the agency misled the White House “is just a crock.”
“They deserve a lot of praise,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, they ought to be decorated, not criticized.”
He also said the program was authorized and the CIA did not want to proceed without authorization, and it was also reviewed legally by the Justice Department before they undertook the program.
Cheney called the techniques “absolutely, totally justified.”