Cheney Slams Obama’s Probe of CIA Interrogations

Calling it a “terrible decision” that undermines national security and devastates CIA morale, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed the Obama administration’s probe of aggressive interrogation of terrorists. “It’s an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long-term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say,” Cheney told “FOX News Sunday” in a no-holds-barred interview.

In blunt, unsparing language, Cheney accused President Obama of setting a “terrible precedent” by allowing an “intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration.”

He said the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a probe into alleged abuse of prisoners under the prior administration “offends the hell out of me,” as he seemed to question Obama’s fitness as commander-in-chief.

“I have serious doubts about his policies,” Cheney told FOX News’ Chris Wallace in Jackson Hole, Wyo. “Serious doubts, especially, about the extent to which he understands and is prepared to do what needs to be done to defend the nation.”

As evidence, Cheney pointed to Obama’s decision last week to assert White House control over a newly formed unit that will interrogate terrorists. The new arrangement shifts control of such interrogations away from the CIA and toward the FBI, although oversight will be exercised by the National Security Council, which is located in the White House and reports directly to the president.

Read Full Article

Cheney, Obama – No Middle Ground on Gitmo Approach

The headlines will say two big, dueling speeches about the war on terror were delivered in Washington on Thursday, one by President Barack Obama and one by former Vice President Dick Cheney.

And that’s true, as far as it goes. But it would be more accurate to say that four quite different speeches were delivered.

Mr. Cheney gave one speech, a remarkably focused, blistering attack on those who criticize the Bush administration’s methods for detaining and interrogating terror suspects. Scathing in terminology, scornful in tone, Mr. Cheney took on those critics and gave not an inch of ground to them. He questioned both the integrity and wisdom of those, including the current president, who would reverse policies that he said have kept America safe for more than seven years since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Obama: I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As commander-in-chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I categorically reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation.

Cheney: The interrogations were…legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent deaths of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.

Those who prefer their Washington policy debates to be cloaked in understatement or delicate euphemisms may have been taken aback by the ferocity of the Cheney rejoinder, which crackled in intensity, even while being delivered in the former vice president’s trademark monotone style.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama, facing the trickier task of selling a policy to both parties, really gave three speeches wrapped in one. His first was meant to address critics on the right, who charge he has gone soft on terror and that his decision to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay will bring to U.S. soil dangerous extremists.

via No Middle Ground on Gitmo Approach – WSJ.com.

Biden Reveals Location of Secret VP Bunker

Vice President Joe Biden, well-known for his verbal gaffes, may have finally outdone himself, divulging potentially classified information meant to save the life of a sitting vice president.

According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president.

The bunker is believed to be the secure, undisclosed location former Vice President Dick Cheney remained under protection in secret after the 9/11 attacks.

Eleanor Clift, Newsweek magazine’s Washington contributing editor, said Biden revealed the location while filling in for President Obama at the dinner, who, along with Grover Cleveland, is the only president to skip the gathering.

According to the report, Biden “said a young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment.”

Clift continued: “The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall.”

Source

Cheney: Obama Endangers The Nation

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday continued his verbal attack against President Obama, saying that the country is more vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack since the Obama administration took power.

Mr. Cheney said that administration’s dismantling of many of the policies and protections instituted by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — including the planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and halting controversial prisoner interrogation techniques — have made the country more vulnerable to future attacks.

“That’s my belief,” Mr. Cheney said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I think to the extent that those [Bush-era] policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies … means in the future we’re not going to have the same safeguards we’ve had for the last eight years.”

Source

Cheney: Obama Doesn’t Recognize Terrorism Threat

Former Vice President Dick Cheney says the Obama administration no longer believes that America is threatened by terrorists and is making dangerous mistakes in lowering U.S. defenses.

The threat is there. It’s very real and it’s continuing, Cheney told Fox News Sean Hannity in the second part of a two-part interview Tuesday night. And what the Obama people are doing, in effect, is saying, well, we don’t need those tough policies that we had.

That says either they didn’t work, which we know is not the case — they did work, they kept us safe for seven years — or that now somehow the threat’s gone away. There’s no longer a threat out there, we don’t have to be as tough and aggressive as the Bush administration was.

It,s that post-9/11 mindset that most concerns him, Cheney said.

Barack Obama and his administration are no longer going to ask our guys tough questions when they are captured. Now, maybe we won’t behead their people when they capture them. I mean, it’s just — it says something about a mindset that I worry about very much, Cheney said.

And I think there’s a problem out there nationally in the sense that we are 7.5 years, almost 8 years now, away from 9/11, Cheney continued. And a lot of people would like to forget it and believe that the threat is gone, it’s diminished, it’s disappeared.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. And one of the worst things we could do is start to act now as though the attack of 9/11 is a thing of the past and will never be repeated. That’s just not true.

Read Full Article

Cheney: Changes to Anti-Terrorism Policy Will Raise the Risk of Attack

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that the Obama administration will “raise the risk” of a terrorist attack by overhauling his predecessor’s approach to the War on Terror.

Cheney sharply criticized Obama’s decisions to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, limit the methods CIA officers use to interrogate terror suspects and suspend military tribunals for alleged terrorists, saying those decisions taken together will make Americans less safe.

And he warned that the administration was transitioning to a pre-9/11 mindset that views terrorism as a “law enforcement problem” and not a military threat.

“When you go back to the law enforcement mode, which I sense is what they’re doing … they are very much giving up that center of attention and focus that’s required, and that concept of military threat that is essential if you’re going to successfully defend the nation against further attacks,” Cheney said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

He said the Bush administration’s tough anti-terrorism policies were “absolutely essential” to the military’s ability to gather the intelligence that helped foil “all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11.”

Cheney added: “President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack.”

via Cheney: Obama’s Changes to Anti-Terrorism Policy Will Raise the Risk of Attack – Presidential Politics | Political News – FOXNews.com.

Cheney: Obama Policies Risk Catastrophic Terror Attacks

Former vice president Dick Cheney has warned that President Barack Obama’s anti-terror policies risk exposing the United States to a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack.

In his first interview since Obama’s inauguration, with Politico Tuesday, Cheney was unapologetic about the bitter controversies surrounding his own influential role in president George W. Bush’s “war on terror.”

Cheney said Obama would regret his commitment to closing down the Guantanamo Bay internment camp and ending harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects.

“These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek,” he said in the interview, conducted at an office near Cheney’s new home in Washington’s Virginia suburbs.

He said the “ultimate threat” facing the country since the September 11 attacks of 2001 was if extremists can unleash “a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind” in the center of a US city.

“That’s the one that would involve the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, and the one you have to spend a hell of a lot of time guarding against,” Cheney said.

“I think there’s a high probability of such an attempt,” he added.

“Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States.”

Source