In the wake of Vice President Cheney’s shockingly forthright interview with ABC News, many bloggers on this site and elsewhere have decried the fact that Cheney basically acknowledged his involvement in torture and wiretapping. Not surprisingly, the interview has produced calls for impeachment, investigations, prosecutions, and war crime tribunals.
Those issuing these calls may be playing right into Cheney’s trap.
We all need to stop for a second here and think about what has happened. Whatever serious personal character flaws the Vice President might have, he is not a fool. He didn’t need to do this interview. He wanted to do the interview and he specifically wanted to talk about his involvement in torture and surveillance. So he must have had a reason for this sudden mea not culpa, which he absolutely knew would inspire calls for his head on a platter.
Here is what I believe: The interview was specifically designed to set the stage for a Bush pardon of all individuals involved in activities related to the "war on terror."
For months, I have feared the day when I would hear the following remarks (or something similar) from President Bush as he issued a blanket pardon for all individuals involved in torture, warrantless wiretapping, rendition, and other unconstitutional or illegal acts during his tenure in office:
I will not allow these good Americans who did everything in their power to keep us safe after the tragedy of 9/11 to suffer through endless investigations and legal proceedings conducted by individuals who were not involved in the staggeringly difficult task of defending this nation against the possibility of another terrorist attack.
Sure, this would pissed off some people -- including me -- who were looking for members of the administration to pay for their sins. But for the vast majority of Americans, steeped in the 24 television show mentality, the message would likely have a certain appeal and the basic desire to put this chapter in our history behind us would be strong.
So my assumption has been that we are heading toward some kind of blanket pardon. It simply doesn’t make sense for Bush to leave office with all of his cohorts – led by the primary foil of all progressives, Dick Cheney – completely exposed.
This is why I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when Attorney General Mukasey said he didn’t believe it would be necessary for Bush to issue pardons to administration officials. That seemed to be completely off-message. I think Vice President Cheney felt the same way and had his people arrange an interview as soon as possible. The purpose of this interview would be to stir up a hornets’ nest of anger directed at the Vice President to prove that pardons were needed.
The interview would be arranged so that the Vice President had the opportunity to offer his frank remarks within the frame envisioned in Bush’s hypothetical remarks, above. ABC was all too willing to comply. How else could one explain the incredibly slanted first question:
Mr. Vice President, there has not been a terrorist attack in the United States in more than seven years. How important have your administration's policies on surveillance, interrogation and detention been in protecting the homeland?
The interview was also strange in the sense that the reporter, Jonathan Karl, pushed Cheney on the matter of Khalid Shiekh Mohammed and waterboarding enough to get Cheney to admit that he authorized the "tactics," but Karl didn’t seem to care enough to ask the basic question, "Do you consider waterboarding to be torture?" Here are the relevant excerpts from the exchange:
CHENEY: ...On the question of so-called torture, we don't do torture. We never have. It's not something that this administration subscribes to. Again, we proceeded very cautiously. We checked. We had the Justice Department issue the requisite opinions in order to know where the bright lines were that you could not cross.
The professionals involved in that program were very, very cautious, very careful -- wouldn't do anything without making certain it was authorized and that it was legal. And any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong. Did it produce the desired results? I think it did.
I think, for example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was the number three man in al Qaeda, the man who planned the attacks of 9/11, provided us with a wealth of information. There was a period of time there, three or four years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al Qaeda came from that one source. So, it's been a remarkably successful effort. I think the results speak for themselves.
And I think those who allege that we've been involved in torture, or that somehow we violated the Constitution or laws with the terrorist surveillance program, simply don't know what they're talking about.
KARL: Did you authorize the tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
CHENEY: I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.
KARL: In hindsight, do you think any of those tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others went too far?
CHENEY: I don't.
[Later...]
KARL: And on KSM, one of those tactics, of course, widely reported was waterboarding. And that seems to be a tactic we no longer use. Even that you think was appropriate?
CHENEY: I do.
[Karl then immediately changes the subject to Guantanamo.]
Cheney went on to defend other aspects of the Bush administration’s "war on terror," including Guantanamo and its surveillance program. Later, when asked whether he had changed over the years, he offered this interesting summation of his time as Vice President:
CHENEY: Well, I – the way I think of it is in terms of whether or not I changed, I think a prime motivation for me and much of what I've done was 9/11. And being here on 9/11, going through that experience. And reaching the conclusion that somebody said the other day that I said at that point, that's not going to happen again on my watch. And we've done everything we could, the president has, I have, a lot of the people that we work with, to make certain that didn't happen.
And we've succeeded. But when you contemplate the 9/11 with terrorists instead of being armed with box cutters and airline tickets, equipped with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind in the middle of one of our cities and think about the consequences of that and then I think we're justified in taking bold action. I think it's incumbent upon us to take bold action to make certain that never happens.
And it does say we've been successful for seven and a half years now and have I changed? Well, not in the sense that I've gone through some fundamental psychological transition here but I have been since that day focused very much on what we needed to do to defend the nation and I think the policies we've recommended, the programs that we've undertaken have been good programs. I think those have been sound decisions and if that's what they mean by saying I've changed, I'm guilty.
Guilty, huh? Sounds like somebody needs a pardon...
Perhaps this is too speculative. Perhaps there are some holes in my argument. But if Cheney wasn’t setting the stage for pardons, why did he put himself out like this? There is plenty of time for defending the legacy of the Bush administration after January 20.
I welcome your reaction.
Update: I noticed that David Latt wrote something similar on Huffington Post. His angle is that Cheney was daring a reluctant Bush to issue pardons. My point, I believe, is slightly different.