Former vice president Dick Cheney said enhanced interrogation programs should remain "active and ready to go" in spite of the clamoring and revisionist history from "Monday morning quarterbacks."
Further, Cheney told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Thursday that he's still "prepared to defend, debate and argue" for the programs, rebuffing those who call it torture.
"If it were my call I would not discontinue those programs. I'd have them active and ready to go," Cheney said on "Mornings with Maria." "And I'd go back and study them and learn.
"I'm not one of those people that calls it torture. An awful lot of people do. But it wasn't," Cheney said. "It was set up in a way that was consistent with our fundamental statutes and agreements that were in place. And it worked.
"I supported it whole-heartedly. Still do to this day. Prepared to defend it, debate it and argue it," said Cheney, who supports Gina Haspel's candidacy to become CIA director.
Another reason enhanced interrogation techniques should not be considered torture, Cheney asserts:
"I think the techniques we used were not torture. Our techniques were used on our people in training," Cheney said.
Most important, Cheney said, the techniques work. They were successful. Just three terrorists were water-boarded, Cheney said, and one of those was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), No. 2 in command to Osama bin Laden and the mastermind of 9/11.
"There are a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks in the terrorism business," Cheney said.
"You tell me that the only method we have is please, please, pretty please, tell us what you know? Well I don't buy that," Cheney said of the information gleaned from KSM.
"Now people wanna go back and try to rewrite history. But if it were my call, I'd do it again," Cheney said.
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