Former Vice President Dick Cheney still doesn’t believe waterboarding qualifies as torture and told an audience Thursday night at American University that he would “do it all over again” if he had to.
“The accusations are not true,” Cheney said of some student protesters’ accusations that his sanctioning of enhanced interrogation tactics makes him a war criminal, as quoted by American University’s student newspaper The Eagle.
Cheney said that three people were waterboarded during the course of his vice presidency, according to The Eagle’s report. The practice involves simulating the experience of drowning by pouring large quantities of water over a person’s nose and mouth.
“If I would have to do it all over again, I would,” he added. “The results speak for themselves.”
It’s a justification Cheney has used before, and one that has been disputed by members of the intelligence community. Cheney repeatedly claimed that waterboarding Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, was a “success” that yielded actionable intelligence even though intelligence officials denied that assertion. Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has also said that enhanced interrogation techniques failed to produce the intelligence that led U.S. officials to Osama bin Laden.
