One of the most polarizing figures in American politics will “Meet the Press” Sunday to respond to a damning new CIA torture report.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney will sit down with Chuck Todd exclusively Sunday to respond to the recently released CIA torture report, which detailed post-9/11 torture America’s intelligence agencies implemented on prisoners, including water boarding, forced sleep deprivation, “rectal feeding,”, mock executions, and use of diapers for prisoners.
“I think it is a terrible report, deeply flawed,” Cheney said on Fox News Wednesday in his first interview on the report.”It’s a classic example of where politicians get together and throw professionals under the bus.”
“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,” he added. “The report’s full of crap.”
Cheney denied reports President Bush was not informed of the full details of the interrogation program: “I think he knew, certainly the techniques…there was no effort on our part to keep him from that.”
The release of the report this week by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has generated predictable results: most Democrats supporting the transparent release of information, acknowledging America should admit when it’s made mistakes; Republicans accusing Democrats of releasing the report for political reasons, trying to embarrass the Bush administration, including Cheney.
Some of those torture measures were depicted in the Hollywood depiction of the CIA’s war on terror leading up to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden–“Zero Dark Thirty.”
Cheney watched the film, and said he “mostly liked it,” but “didn’t agree with its depiction of harsh CIA interrogations,” telling the Reno Gazette the movie depicted torture scenes that never happened in reality.
Watch Cheney’s interview with Baier below: