Cheney: ‘Please, please, pretty please’ doesn’t work with terrorists

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday defended the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques while he was in office, even as they have sparked criticism for President Trump’s pick to lead the CIA.

“If you know Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the mastermind behind all of this, if you know he is No. 2 to [Osama] bin Laden in terms of the attack, if you know he’s probably the guy who knows more than anybody else except bin Laden what’s next, what’s the next target, how many people are they gonna kill and how are they gonna do it, and then you tell me that only method we have is, ‘please, please, pretty please, tell us what you know,’ I don’t buy that,” Cheney said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”

{mosads}

Gina Haspel, Trump’s nominee for CIA director, is in the midst of a tenuous confirmation battle. Most Democrats have said they will vote against her nomination because of her role in overseeing the enhanced interrogation program during the George W. Bush administration and the subsequent destruction of tapes documenting interrogations at a CIA black site.

The methods used in the program are now widely considered to be torture.

During her confirmation hearing, Haspel did not directly answer questions about whether or not the techniques used were immoral. She did vow that she would not bring the program back if she were leading the agency.

Cheney on Sunday advocated for keeping such programs at the CIA’s disposal.

“I’m not one of those people who calls it torture, an awful lot of people do,” Cheney said on Fox News.

“It was set up in a way that what we did was in fact consistent with our fundamental statutes and agreements that were in place. And it worked,” he added.

Despite initial concerns over whether she’d be confirmed, Haspel’s confirmation appears to be on solid ground following endorsements from a pair of red-state Democrats.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) have, in recent days, said they will vote for Haspel’s confirmation.