Former Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Sunday that the Justice Department's decision to review detainee interrogation practices by Central Intelligence Agency workers and contractors was "a political move" and that President Obama was trying to "duck the responsibility" by saying the choice was the attorney general's, NY Times reported.
But the comments from Mr. Cheney, a constant, sharp critic of the Obama administration, drew an impassioned if partial dissent from a prominent fellow Republican, Senator John McCain, their party's presidential candidate in 2008.
Speaking on the television program "Fox News Sunday," Mr. Cheney called Attorney General Eric H. Holder's decision to name a federal prosecutor to examine abuse of prisoners held by the C.I.A. "clearly a political move - I mean, there's no other rationale for why they're doing this."
Mr. Cheney said the review would create "an outrageous precedent" for the Justice Department under Mr. Obama to take an "intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration." This, he said, would be devastating to C.I.A. morale and undercut future efforts to prevent terror attacks.
Mr. McCain, a leading Republican voice on security issues and a onetime Vietnam prisoner of war, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that he also thought that the Justice Department review was a mistake that might harm agency morale and effectiveness. But in response to Mr. Cheney's comments, he defended the attorney general's authority to make the call.
"The attorney general has a unique position in the cabinet obviously," he said, referring to the traditional independence of the position. "He can't be told what to do by the president of the United States. But I think it's a mistake."
Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and also a decorated Vietnam veteran, responded more bluntly on ABC's "This Week," saying that Mr. Cheney had shown through the years "frankly, a disrespect for the Constitution, for sharing of information with Congress, respect for the law, and I'm not surprised that he is upset about this."
Mr. McCain's sharpest departure from Mr. Cheney came in his criticism of the C.I.A.'s use of extreme interrogation methods, even as Mr. Cheney again insisted that they had provided critical, life-saving intelligence. The senator, a frequent critic of torture, said that such techniques violated the Geneva convention on torture, damaged United States relations with allies, substantially aided al-Qaeda with its recruitment and produced unreliable intelligence.
"I think it harmed our image in the world," Mr. McCain said. "But for us now to go back, I think, would be a serious mistake."
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the intelligence committee, also expressed her ambivalence about the review. Ms. Feinstein said on Sunday that after reading the full and unredacted report by the C.I.A. inspector general that led to Mr. Holder's decision, "I was horrified, so I understand the attorney general's reaction." But she added on "Face the Nation" that "the timing of this is not very good."
Her committee is nearing completion of a bipartisan study of interrogation and detention practices. Ms. Feinstein asserted that some news reports on the C.I.A. have contained "a good deal of error" and added, "Candidly, I wish the attorney general had waited."
Mr. Cheney strongly defended the tough approach on detainee treatment that he helped craft, and said he was comfortable even with the fact that some C.I.A. interrogators went beyond the tactics approved by the Bush administration.
What "offends the hell out of me," Mr. Cheney said, was that after eight years without terrorist attacks, the Obama team was raising the possibility of legal action, rather than asking Bush officials, "How did you do it?" "It's an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long-term."
The Fox interviewer, Chris Wallace, referred Mr. Cheney to a New York Times article reporting that the C.I.A. in 2004 had hired outside contractors as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top al-Qaeda operatives. Mr. Wallace asked Mr. Cheney whether it was true that he had told C.I.A. officers in 2002 that the agency did not need to inform Congress.
"The direction was for them not to tell Congress until certain lines were passed, until the program became operational," he said.
Mr. Cheney also dismissed Mr. Obama's decision to create an interagency terrorist-interrogation team - to relieve the C.I.A. of direct responsibility - as "silly." He added: "I think it's a direct slap at the C.I.A. I don't think it will work."
Mr. Cheney also criticized former President Bill Clinton's mission to Pyongyang that freed two American journalists held there. In policy terms, he said, it was a "mistake" and "a big reward for bad behavior" by the North Koreans.
Finally, the former vice president suggested that had it been up to him, he might seriously have considered a military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Without such a credible threat, he added, negotiations were bound to fail.
It was not his decision to make, he said, but had it been, "I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues."
...