Dick Cheney against CIA investigation

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke out on Fox News yesterday against the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the alleged abuse of prisoners by CIA interrogators. Cheney said he was concerned what effect the investigation would have on morale in the CIA and called it “clearly a political move.”

“We had … President Obama tell us a few months ago there wouldn’t be any investigation like this; that there would not be any look back at CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the prior administration,” said Cheney. “Now they get a little heat from the left wing of the Democratic party, and they’re reversing course on that.”

On “The Takeaway,” Scott Shane who covers intelligence for “The New York Times,” went over the details of the investigation and what Cheney knew and supported of the interrogation techniques.

“The politics for President Obama really run the other way,” said Shane. “He wants to get health care reform done, and has said repeatedly that he wants to look forward and not back. He never actually promised there wouldn’t be an investigation; he did say he didn’t think that people who engaged in authorized activities should be prosecuted.”

In his interview on Fox News, Cheney said that he supported officers in the CIA who had ventured outside Justice Department rules and used unauthorized interrogation techniques because it kept Americans safe.

According to Shane, Cheney is referring to techniques such as, “Threatening a prisoner with a power drill or a handgun, or suggesting that his relatives might be sexually assaulted … those things are not listed in the Justice Department memo that justifies all this stuff. So there’s some speculation that perhaps people who did those things could get in trouble.”

Cheney also said that President Obama should take a cue from the Bush administration’s techniques: “We have a track record of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from Al Qaeda. 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.'”

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