Cheney, Dec. 14: We were very careful to stop short of torture. The Senate has seen fit to label their report torture. But we worked hard to stay short of that definition.

Chuck Todd: Well, what is that definition?

Cheney: Definitions, and one that was provided by the Office of Legal Counsel, we went specifically to them because

— we did not want to cross that line into where we were violating some international agreement that we’d signed up to. They specifically authorized and okayed, for example, exactly what we did. All of the techniques that were authorized by the president were, in effect, blessed by the Justice Department opinion that we could go forward with those without, in fact, committing torture.