"Cheney Lies." is a complete sentence. It has a subject and a predicate. This two word sentence conveys completely everything there is to know about the subject of the sentence.
Dick Cheney recently slithered from his undisclosed location to spew lies in another attempt to rewrite history, taint the jury pool, or whatever it is that he is trying to do with his appearances on national media fora. I can only imagine why they continue to afford him this privilege.
Cheney's latest trail leads to CBS News' Face The Nation.
Some of his lies included:
... by getting rid of the enhanced interrogation techniques and the Bush adminstration's surveillance program, "you reduce the intelligence flow to the intelligence community upon which we based those policies that were so successful."
... waterboarding and other interrogation procedures were part of "an intelligent interrogation program," and that revoking them may cost American lives.
A few quoted lies:
I think it was absolutely the right thing to do. I'm convinced, absolutely convinced, that we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives.
Well, then you'd have to say that, in effect, we're prepared to sacrifice American lives rather than run an intelligent interrogation program that would provide us the information we need to protect America.
The "intelligent interrogation program" to which he refers is torture. We are not talking about "waterboarding" or "stress positions." The torture program referenced by Dick Cheney resulted in at least 43 homicides.
At least 11 of the 43 homicide cases involved blunt trauma or asphyxiation. At least three of the homicides reported have resulted in murder charges. Another three have resulted in charges of voluntary manslaughter.
Cheney's claim that the "policies" were "so successful" is absurd. Torture does not work. That has been known a for a long time:
It is incredible what people say under the compulsion of torture, and how many lies they will tell about themselves and about others; in the end, whatever the torturers want to be true, is true.
-Friedrich von Spee, 1631
A secret report created by the CIA Office of Inspector General in 2004 said, "it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks." Robert Mueller, Director of the F.B.I., was asked, "have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls 'enhanced techniques'?" His reply: "I don’t believe that has been the case." These are probably the most reliable sources to answer Cheney's claim that "we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives." According to an article in Vanity Fair, "a surprising number of counterterrorist officials say that, apart from being wrong, torture just doesn’t work."
Cheney claimed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed did not cooperate until after he had been subjected to waterboarding. No doubt Khalid Shaikh Mohammed did say many things while being waterboarded 183 times, but a CIA official cautioned that "many of Mohammed's claims during interrogation were 'white noise' designed to send the U.S. on wild goose chases or to get him through the day's interrogation session". I think that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is a very bad man who should stand trial for whatever crimes he may have commited, but he should not have been be tortured.
Apparently, the primary justification for torture by Dick Cheney and others is that it worked. According to John Dean, "There are no exceptions with torture. There are no real things like torture light." Alex Abdo, a legal fellow for the ACLU said, "There is no exigency exception in the anti-torture statute."
David Kaye, Executive Director of the International Human Rights Program and former State Department lawyer said:
U.S. anti-torture laws bar even "the conspiracy to commit torture," and those are the provisions that "should cause concern for [any] senior-level officials" who sanctioned improper interrogations, even from a distance.
It may be that Cheney thinks that he is going held accountable for his actions, so he is employing another pre-emptive strategy to mitigate the consequences. I can't think of a better reason for someone who has held the rest of the world in comtempt for so long to be on the "Spring '09 Tour of Lies."