Former VP says ‘I was a big supporter’ of waterboarding, other torture techniques

Waterboarding should have been an option for the failed Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, former Vice President Dick Cheney says.

“I think you ought to have all of those capabilities on the table,” Cheney told ABC’s Jonathan Karl Sunday.

ADVERTISEMENT

Cheney also said he opposed the Obama administration’s ban on waterboarding.

“He announced when he came in last year that they would never use anything other than the U.S. Army manual, which doesn’t include those techniques,” Cheney said. “I think that’s a mistake.”

He went on to address his feelings about his own administration officially doing away with waterboarding policy during Bush’s second term.

“I was a big supporter of waterboarding. I was a big supporter of the enhanced interrogation techniques,” he said.

Over the course of the interview Cheney also commented on several current news stories.

ADVERTISEMENT

He said it is time to reconsider the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gays and lesbians in the armed services. He declined to support a 2012 presidential bid by Sarah Palin. And he is a “complete supporter” of Obama’s Afghanistan policy, but Joe Biden is “dead wrong” on terrorism.

A complete transcript of Cheney’s interview with Jonathan Karl is available here.

This video is from ABC’s This Week, broadcast Feb. 14, 2010.

ADVERTISEMENT





Download video via RawReplay.com