Dick Cheney: Omissions, Exaggerations And Misstatements”

Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel at McClatchy went through the Cheney “Save My Legacy” speech at AEI and came up with “omissions, exaggeratons, and misstatements.” (h/t Hoffmania)

Cheney claimed that Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair,said that the information [obtained via torture] gave U.S. officials a “deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country.”

In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information “was valuable in some instances” but that “there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”

A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general’s investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any “specific imminent attacks,” according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn’t think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.

Cheney also claimed that Obama’s release of four memos on interrogation techniques was “flatly contrary” to US national security.

However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, “strongly supported” Obama’s decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that “we do not need these techniques to keep America safe.”

Cheney said there was no connection between interrogation techniques and abuse at Abu Ghraib and blamed abuse on “a few sadistic guards” acting on their own.  A Senate Armed Services Committee report in December 2008 contradicted that.

“The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own,” said the report issued by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz. “The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees.”

Cheney blasted Obama for “the selective release” of documents on detainee policies, suggesting he purposely withheld documents that prove harsh interrogation techniques prevented attacks.

However, the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA, which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.

Cheney slammed Obama for his decision to close Gitmo, forgetting that the effort to do so began during his administraiton.

“One of the things that would help a lot is, in the discussions that we have with the states of which they (detainees) are nationals, if we could get some of those countries to take them back,” [Secretary of State] Rice said in a Dec. 12, 2007, interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. “So we need help in closing Guantanamo.”

Mr. Cheney will have to work a bit harder, and be a bit more accurate, if he is to succeed in the “Save My Legacy Tour”.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.