Former Vice President Dick Cheney said that he would reinstate the practice of waterboarding if he were president. In the wake of last week’s killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, Cheney said he would advocate lifting President Obama’s ban on the enhanced interrogation tactic, which critics say is torture.
“I certainly would advocate it; I’d be a strong supporter of it,” Cheney said of the use of waterboarding on “Fox News Sunday.”
During Cheney’s time as vice president, the U.S. permitted the use of waterboarding, as well as other enhanced interrogation tactics, against some high-value terrorists captured by the U.S.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, al Qaeda’s No. 3 official, is said to have endured a number of waterboarding procedures.
“I’m still concerned that a lot of the techniques we used to keep the country safe for seven years have been taken off the table,” Cheney said. “It’s not clear to me today that we have an interrogation program that we could put a high-value terrorist through.”
Asked about Cheney’s comments, White House national security adviser Tom Donilon said the administration does not support using waterboarding.
“Our judgment is that it’s not consistent with our values, not consistent and not necessary in terms of getting the kind of intelligence that we need,” he said.
The former vice president has been a particularly strident critic of President Obama’s handling of the war against terror. But Cheney said that Obama deserved credit for the killing of bin Laden, specifically the decision to authorize an elite team of Navy SEALs to lead an assault against the Pakistan compound where bin Laden had been hiding.
Cheney said he feared now, though, that bin Laden’s killing would be used as a pretext to accelerate the planned U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, bin Laden’s launching base before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“I’m not sure that’s wise at all,” Cheney said.
{The Hill/Matzav.com Newscenter}
What a shame to print an article that contains the lying insinuations of D.Cheney as though When bush resumed enhanced interrogation techniques in 2007 Bush admin claims it wouldnt resume waterboard torture or heat and cold torture.
According to ABC News former and current CIA officials have come forward to reveal details of interrogation techniques authorized in the CIA. These include:
[1] Waterboarding
[2] Hypothermia: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius), while being regularly doused with cold water in order to increase the rate at which heat is lost from the body. (A water temperature of 10 °C (50 °F) often leads to death in one hour.
[3] Stress positions: Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor, for more than 40 hours, causing the prisoners weight to be placed on just one or two muscles. This creates an intense amount of pressure on the legs, leading first to pain and then muscle failure.
[4] Abdomen strikes: A hard, open-handed slap is dealt to the prisoner’s abdomen. Doctors consulted over the matter advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
[5] Slapping: An open-handed slap is delivered to the prisoner’s face, aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
[6] Shaking: The interrogator forcefully grabs the front of the prisoner’s shirt and shakes them.
Why would Cheny and the Hill, a conservative progaganda media instrument, do such a poor job of communicating that they communicate they want obama to restart what Bush discontinued.
Bush maintains that the practices he restarted in 2007 were in compliance with the Geneva conventions– practices not in compliance with the Geneva conventions are the ones Cheyny wants to restart.