1 Boring Old Man

Cheney Defends Use of Harsh Interrogations

Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday vigorously defended the use of harsh interrogation techniques on a few suspected terrorists, saying that the methods made up “a tougher program, for tougher customers” and might have averted another attack on the United States.

“A small number of terrorists, high-value targets, held overseas have gone through an interrogation program run by the C.I.A.,” Mr. Cheney said in an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, around the same time that the head of the Central Intelligence Agency said one of the most controversial interrogation methods, “waterboarding,” may be illegal under current law.

The “high-value targets” included Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mr. Cheney recalled. “He and others were questioned at a time when another attack on this country was believed to be imminent. It’s a good thing we had them in custody, and it’s a good thing we found out what they knew,” the vice president said, drawing applause.

Mr. Cheney did not use the term “waterboarding,” which simulates the feeling of drowning in the subject. But the C.I.A. director, Michael V. Hayden, acknowledged recently that Mr. Mohammed was one of three suspects on whom the harsh technique was used several years ago.

The vice president asserted that the techniques used by the C.I.A. were safe and professional, and that the interrogation program had unearthed information that had “foiled attack against the United States, information that has saved thousands of lives.”

And, in a rebuttal to critics of the Bush administration critics, Mr. Cheney said, “The United States is a country that takes human rights seriously. We do not torture — it’s against our laws and against our values.”

Meanwhile, General Hayden told a Congressional Committee on Thursday that waterboarding may be illegal under current law, despite assertions this week from the director of national intelligence and the White House that the harsh interrogation method may be used in the future.

General Hayden said that while “all the techniques we’ve used have been deemed to be lawful,” laws have changed since waterboarding was last used nearly five years ago.

“It is not included in the current program, and in my own view, the view of my lawyers and the Department of Justice, it is not certain that the technique would be considered to be lawful under current statute,” the general said before the House Intelligence Committee.

His remarks and those of the vice president came as Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey rebuffed Democrats’ demands for a criminal investigation of waterboarding, which creates a feeling of suffocation and was used on the three Al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003.

Mr. Mukasey noted that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, were approved by the Justice Department.

As a result, Mr. Mukasey told the House Judiciary Committee, waterboarding by C.I.A. officers “cannot possibly be the subject of a criminal, a Justice Department investigation, because that would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now consider prosecuting someone who followed that advice.”