Dick Cheney, the former US vice-president, has mounted a strident defence of the torture of terrorist suspects by American interrogators during the George W. Bush administration.

In a documentary on his life and career to be broadcast this week, Mr Cheney dismissed the suggestion that US leaders should risk the lives of Americans out of a concern for their own honour.

Dick Cheney. Credit:AFP

''Tell me what terrorist attack is it you would have let go forward because you didn't want to be a mean and nasty fellow,'' he said, when asked if the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects was justified.

''Given a choice between doing what we did or backing off and saying 'we know you know the next attack against the United States, but we're not going to force you to tell us what it is, because it might create a bad image for us', that's not a close call for me.''