Apr.21, 2009 in English

Now that the memos showing the rulings of interrogation techniques have been released, the Obama administration should release additional documents that show what the interrogations yielded to make it an “honest debate,” former Vice President Dick Cheney told FOX News on Monday.

In an interview with FOX News’ Sean Hannity aired on “Hannity” Monday night, Cheney questioned the point of releasing the legal decisions behind the interrogations but not the outcome of them.

“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort,” Cheney said.

Cheney said he’s asked that the documents be declassified because he has remained silent on the confidential information, but he knows how successful the interrogation process was and wants the rest of the country to understand.

“I haven’t talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country,” Cheney said. “I’ve now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was.”

Cheney says he doesn’t find it surprising that he’s still asked for his views on administrative policies and thinks it’s appropriate for those with a different point of view to be able to express it — and give the American people the ability to evaluate.

“It’s important to not personally attack the new president — I’ve never done that,” said Cheney.

The former vice president says the biggest task he had was to protect the nation’s security following 9/11 and to ensure such devastation would never happen again.  He says many of the policies he set up are currently being dismantled by the Obama administration.

“There’s a great temptation for a new administration to find a problem and blame it on the predecessor.  We did it.  The Obama administration is not the first one to do that,” said Cheney.

Since his departure from the White House, Cheney says he’s been concerned over the way the U.S. has been presented overseas and finds Obama’s apologies to various countries “disturbing.” He also feels Obama’s “coziness” with America’s opponents like Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez is not “helpful.”

“Since the U.S. provides most leadership in the world,  I don’t think we have much to apologize for,” said Cheney.

While he feels that a president needs to interact with adversaries, Cheney says it’s important to distinguish between the good guys and bad guys.  He says that the world will be quick to take advantage of a situation if they feel like they’re dealing with a weak president.

“It’s important the U.S. that we don’t come off as arrogant — but also important to not come across as weak, indecisive and apologetic,” said Cheney.

Sursa: foxnews.com