Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday defended the Bush administration’s economic record, the invasion of Iraq and the treatment of suspected terrorists, warning that reversing its anti-terrorism policies endangers Americans.
"We’ve accomplished nearly everything we set out to do," ex-Vice President Dick Cheney says Sunday about Iraq.
In a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s "State of the Union," Cheney said the harsh interrogations of suspects and the use of warrantless electronic surveillance were "absolutely essential" to get information to prevent more attacks like the 2001 suicide hijackings that targeted New York and Washington.
"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," he said.
Critics said the Bush administration’s "alternative" interrogation techniques amounted to the torture of prisoners in American custody, while the administration’s warrantless surveillance program violated federal laws enacted after the Watergate scandal.
Since taking office in January, Obama has announced plans to close the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to halt the military trials of suspected terrorists there, and to make CIA officers follow the Army field manual’s rules on interrogations. Cheney said the administration appears to be returning to the pre-2001 model of treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue, rather than a military problem.
"When you go back to the law enforcement mode, which I sense is what they’re doing, closing Guantanamo and so forth … they are very much giving up that center of attention and focus that’s required, that concept of military threat that is essential if you’re going to successfully defend the nation against further attacks," he said.
Get Out of Dodge!
Cheney says Obama’s policies ‘raise the risk’ of U.S. terror attack
Source: CNN.com
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