BAIER: First of all, your overall
impression to this report, what's in it and its release?
CHENEY:
Well, I think it's a terrible piece of work, basically, it seems
to me it's deeply flawed.
They didn't bother to interview key people involved in the program.
And I think that it's sort of a classic example which you see too
often in Washington where a group of politicians get together and
sort of throw the professionals under the bus. We have seen it
happen before, I can remember, in Iran contra.
What happened here was that we asked the
agency to go take steps and put in place programs that are designed
to catch the bastards that killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and to make
sure it didn't happen again. And that's exactly what they did and
they deserve a lot of credit, not the kind of condemnation that
they're receiving from the Senate Democrats.
BAIER: The
Feinstein Report suggests
that President Bush was not fully briefed on the program and was
deliberately kept in the dark by the CIA.
CHENEY:
Not true
- didn't happen. Read his book, he talks about it extensively
in his
memoirs. He was in fact an integral part of the program. He had to
approve it before we went forward with it.
Full video interview on Fox News
BAIER: Was there ever a point when you
believe you knew more about the program and how the U.S. government
was interrogating than the President did?
CHENEY: I'm not quite sure how to answer
that. I mean there were lots of things I read while he was doing
other things. He had a much broader portfolio than I did and I spent
a lot of my time just on national security. But I think he knew
everything he needed to know and wanted to know about the program.
There's no question...
BAIER: What he needed to know - I mean
did he know the details?
CHENEY: I think he knew certainly the
techniques that we did discuss the techniques. There's nothing -
there was no effort on our part to keep him from that. He was just
as with the terrorist surveillance program.
On the terrorist
surveillance program, he had to personally sign off on that every 30
to 45 days. So the notion that the committee's trying to peddle it,
somehow the agency was operating on a rogue basis, and we weren't
being told or the President wasn't being told is just a flat-out
lie.
BAIER: I mean the reports suggest it was
four years before he –
CHENEY: It's not true.
BAIER: 2006.
CHENEY: Read his book. He talks about
first with respect to the detention program and then with respect to
the enhanced interrogation program. It started in the summer of '02
and he was fully informed.
BAIER: "New York Times writes it this
way about the report." When told about one detainee being chained to
the ceiling of his cell, clothed in a diaper and forced to urinate
and defecate on himself, even a president known for his dead or
alive swagger expressed discomfort - true?
CHENEY: I don't have any idea. I have
never heard of such a thing.
Bret -
I guess partly what really bugs me as I watch all this process
unfold is the men and women of the CIA did exactly what we wanted to
have them do in terms of taking on this program.
We said we
have got to go use enhanced techniques if we're going to find out.
We've got Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was the mastermind of 9/11, who
has killed 3,000 Americans, taken down the World Trade Center, hit
the Pentagon, would have taken out the White House or the Capitol
Building if in fact it hadn't been on for the passengers on United
93.
He is in our possession. We know he's
the architect. What are we supposed to do kiss him on both cheeks
and please, please tell us what you know? Of course not. We did
exactly what needed to be done in order to catch those who were
guilty on 9/11 and to prevent a further attack and we were
successful on both parts and I think if I...
BAIER: This report says it was not
successful.
CHENEY: The report's full of crap -
excuse. I said hooey yesterday and let me use the real word.
BAIER: You're on cable.
CHENEY: It's ok, you can bleep it.
BAIER: You're saying that this led to
actionable intelligence?
CHENEY: Absolutely. Look at the
statement by the former directors and deputy directors of the CIA
issued just within the last 24 hours. It did in fact produce
actionable intelligence that was vital in the success of keeping the
country safe from further attacks.
BAIER: Mr. Vice President, some of the
tactics though described in this report are horrifying. I mean is
there anything that U.S. officials/interrogators are alleged to have
done that you would consider torture?
CHENEY: I don't know all the allegations
that are out there, torture was something we very carefully avoided.
One of the reasons we went to the Justice Department on the program
was because we wanted them to tell us, where's the line legally
between what's acceptable and what isn't? And they did, that's what
came forth in the legal opinion that we got before proceeding with
the program, Bret.
This is in terms of there being some
problems in the program - there may well have been. But I don't
think they represented - the Senate report represents the truth of
what actually happened. They put together a report without ever
talking to anybody who was involved in the program.
BAIER: But at one point this report
describes interrogators pureeing food of one detainee and inserting
it into his anus - something agency called "rectal rehydration". I
mean is that torture?
CHENEY: I don't know anything about that
specific instance. I can't speak to that. I guess the question is
what are you prepared to do in order to get the truth about future
attacks against the United States? Now, that was not one of the
authorized or approved techniques, there were 12 of them, as I
recall. They were all techniques that we used in training on our own
people - even
waterboarding.
People have been very concerned about
waterboarding, calling it torture. First of all it was not deemed
torture by the lawyers, and secondly it worked. And in fact that
prevented - provided us the information we needed to prevent future
attacks.
BAIER: How intimately involved were you
involved in the legal process of setting up that justification?
In
other words, the frame for torture was narrowed in these legal
decisions, a memo in August 2002 that essentially reframed Geneva
rules on torture, and said the President had a lot more authority?
You were intimately involved.
CHENEY: Strongly supportive of the
program, strongly supportive of the opinions coming out of
the Justice Department. The work that was done was, I think
absolutely essential, absolutely crucial. And I guess the thing that
always struck me was how careful the agency was in coming forward
and saying yes, we can do the following but we need authorization.
We need a legal opinion out of the Justice Department about what's
copacetic, what's legitimate. And we need the approval of the
President of the United States and the National Security Council.
And they got both and they did a hell of a job.
BAIER: But you rewrote the justification...
CHENEY: I didn't rewrite the
justification, the lawyers wrote it in the office of legal counsel
and the Justice Department.
BAIER: You had an intimate role in...
CHENEY:
I am
strongly supportive of the program. I didn't read the opinion and
say you've got to change this and change that, but my job as vice
president who was actively involved in the national security area
was to push to get programs like this in place which in fact the CIA
said they could produce better results if they had more authority.
We got them that authority.
BAIER: You had one detainee, Gul Rahman,
who died in captivity in November 2002.
CHENEY: 3,000 Americans died on 9/11
because of what these guys did. And I have no sympathy for them. I
don't know the specific details, I'm sure there were instances cited
in the report, I haven't read the report. But I know for a fact...
BAIER: Now wait - you haven't read it?
CHENEY: 6,000 pages - no, not yet.
BAIER: No, but how about 500...
CHENEY: I've seen part of it - I read
summaries of it.
I keep coming back again to the basic
fundamental proposition - Bret. How nice do you want to be to the
murderers of 3,000 Americans on 9/11?
BAIER: So what do you say to the people
who say Americas is better than these methods? That John McCain
takes to the Senate floor yesterday and gives a pretty impassioned
speech.
CHENEY: I saw it...
BAIER: Take a listen to a piece of it
and then I'll have your react to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I dispute
wholeheartedly that it was right for them to use these methods,
which this report makes clear, were neither in the best interests of
justice, nor our security, nor the ideals we have sacrificed so much
blood and treasure to defend. We are always Americans - and
different, stronger, and better than those who would destroy us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Your reaction to that, sir.
CHENEY: My reaction to that John is that
John and I had a fundamental disagreement about the program. I think
that what needed to be done was done. I think we were perfectly
justified in doing it and I'd do it again in a minute.
BAIER: Mr. Vice President, if you'll
stick around past the break...
CHENEY: I will.
BAIER: - a few more questions.
If you have a question for Vice
President Cheney let me know at facebook.com/BretBaierSR or on
Twitter @BretBaier, you can use the hashtag "Special Report". We'll
use some of them in this next segment - so type fast.
More with Vice President Cheney after a
quick break.
BAIER: We are back with former Vice
President Dick Cheney. Mr. Vice President, defenders of the program
and of you say people forget the prism in which you were dealing
with post 9/11. Days after that attack you told the late Tim Russert
this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY:
We also have
to work sort of the dark side if you will, we have got to spend time
in the shadows in the intelligence world. It's going to be vital for
us to use any means that are disposable - at our disposal basically
to achieve our objective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: So Mr. Vice president we have
been attacked, I mean there's Boston and Fort Hood and other
attempts but not a spectacular attack...
CHENEY: Not a mass casualty like 9/11.
BAIER: ...since 9/11.
CHENEY: Right.
BAIER: So did the ends justify the
means?
CHENEY: Absolutely.
BAIER: No doubt in your mind?
CHENEY: I have no doubt in my mind. I'm
totally comfortable with it.
Bret, I think you've got to remember
partly what was going on as well too during that period of time.
We had reporting that al Qaeda was trying to get their hands on
nuclear weapons; that they had been dealing with Pakistanis
who after all have nuclear weapons. We had the anthrax attacks that
went on here at home. There was every reason to expect there was
going to be a follow-on attack.
And from our perspective, if you were
sitting in my chair, the President's chair,
our job was to keep the country safe and secure and go get those
guys who hit us on 9/11. That's exactly what we did. We did
what we felt was necessary.
The professionals in the intelligence
community especially at the CIA did one hell of a job and they
deserve our gratitude.
BAIER: You've been supportive of the
Obama administration's use of drone - one of the few things you're
supportive of the
Obama administration on...
CHENEY: That's a fair statement.
BAIER: ...to take out terrorists. Do you
find it disingenuous - their indignation about these techniques
while they're not interrogating many terrorists at all, they're
killing them in these strikes?
CHENEY: Well, if - we started the drone
program and I think under certain circumstances, depending on the
target and so forth, it's the right thing to do. The thing that's
worrisome is they are not capturing anybody. They don't have an
interrogation program.
If they got to Zawahiri tomorrow, the
current head of al Qaeda, what would they do with him? I'm perfectly
happy to see him dead but he's a very valuable source of information
and intelligence. I think we need first class intelligence programs.
I think that's what we have with respect to enhanced interrogation
program with the approval of the President and the National Security
Council and the lawyers in the Justice Department. It's the right
thing to do.
BAIER: Sheryl Shelly writes on Facebook,
"Had the tactics not been used, what would have happened? What
events were prevented?"
CHENEY: Well, I think if you look at the
example cited by the former directors, there was a perspective
attack on the West Coast on the tallest building on the West Coast,
with a hijacked aircraft that was thwarted by this. There are a
number of examples that have been laid out over the years.
BAIER: I mean the President talked about
it in 2006. Were there others beyond that?
CHENEY: Yes. Look specifically at the
statement that was released today by the former directors - Mike
Hayden, George Tenet, Porter Goss - where they lay out specifically
those things that in their minds, and I think they're the experts
were prevented by virtue of these techniques.
BAIER: Senator Udall took to the floor
today saying a Panetta review says that is in your words hooey. He
says that there's just not direct linkage.
CHENEY: Well, I don't know where he was
on 9/11, but he wasn't in the bunker.
BAIER: The end?
You have a lot of critics, some of them say that you should be
behind bars.
Colonel Wilkerson who worked for
Secretary Powell, said we all have to wear the taint Richard Bruce
Cheney brought down on us with his full- throated endorsement of
inhuman and evil methods of causing pain, humiliation and harm to
other human beings.
It's wrong that there's no consequences for those who
perpetrated it and it's wrong that Cheney isn't languishing in a
privatized prison somewhere.
CHENEY: I guess you would have to call
him not a fan.
BAIER: Not a fan.
CHENEY: Not a fan.
BAIER: Is there anything to the
Geneva
Convention, to the world rule of law on this?
CHENEY: Sure there is.
But remember, the
terrorists were not covered by the Geneva Convention. They were
unlawful combatants.
And
under those circumstances, they were not entitled to the normal
kinds of courtesies and treatment you would accord to those.
Nonetheless, the people we captured, especially the folks that went
down to Guantanamo have been treated very well.
The high-value detainees of al
Qaeda after we finished with the interrogation program - all were
transferred to al Qaeda, where many of them are today being treated
very reasonably.
We did what we needed to do to keep this country safe. That was our
job and we did it. And I think the agency deserves a lot of credit
for it.
BAIER: Last thing - do you think Jeb
Bush is going to run?
CHENEY: I don't know.
BAIER: Do you have a favorite?
CHENEY: I have not signed on to anybody
at this point. I don't want to start naming people or I'll leave
somebody out. But I think it's going to be a great campaign year and
I think we're going to win.
BAIER: Mr. Vice President, thanks for
the time.
CHENEY: It's good to be here - Bret.