VP Cheney was on Face the Nation this past Sunday:
Cheney vigorously defended the Bush administration’s torture policies and his belief that by rejecting them,
SCHIEFFER: Would you go back and talk to the Congress?
CHENEY: Certainly. I’ve made it very clear that I feel very strongly that what we did here was exactly the right thing to do. And if I don’t speak out, then where do we find ourselves, Bob? Then the critics have free run, and there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth. So it’s important — it’s important that we...
SCHIEFFER: Senator Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was on this broadcast recently. And I said, do you intend to ask the former vice president to come up? And he said if he will testify under oath. Would you be willing to testify under oath?
CHENEY: I’d have to see what the circumstances are and what kind of precedent we were setting. But certainly I wouldn’t be out here today if I didn’t feel comfortable talking about what we’re doing publicly.
As usual Cheney is qualifying what he will or will not do. What is it Mr. Vice President, are you ‘for’ getting the truth out or ‘against’ doing so? Bob Schieffer didn’t ask you if you felt 'comfortable' talking about torturing prisoners, he asked if you’d testify under oath about it. As usual you evaded the question.
Who cares what kind of precedent there is, just so long as you tell the truth and nothing but the truth – so help you God.
A couple of weeks ago you wanted all the documents/memos released about the treatment of prisoners, the torturing of them and the results of those actions, now you are qualifying what you will or will not do pertaining to get those facts out?
"I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country," Cheney said. "I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was."
While the media of course is jumping on the Limbaugh and Powell comments you made, the more important story was your admitting that President George W Bush himself authorized this torture and therefore committed war crimes Sunday:
SCHIEFFER: How much did President Bush know specifically about the methods that were being used?
We know that you-- and you have said-- that you approved this...
CHENEY: Right.
SCHIEFFER: ... somewhere down the line. Did President Bush know everything you knew?
CHENEY: I certainly, yes, have every reason to believe he knew -- he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it. I mean, this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.
SCHIEFFER: You said -- you said just a moment ago as you were talking about this, that -- you said that we have to realize what was at stake and we have to realize the circumstances. Do you have any regrets whatsoever about any of the methods that were taken? Any of the things that were used back in those days? Because there's no question the country -- it was a different time. The country's mood was different. We had just been -- something had happened here that had never happened before.
In retrospect, you -- years have passed. You're now out of office. Do you think we should have done some things differently back then, or do you have any regrets about any of it?
CHENEY: No regrets. 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
So, Mr Vice President, if everything you did was legal and proper, you should have no qualms testifying under oath in front of Congress and the American people you profess to care about.
If Congress allows you to testify without raising your right hand and the other on the Bible (which I think we be a huge mistake), at the very least they should require that you answer all questions in front of the American people and not behind some closed doors like you and the president did after 9/11.