Saturday, October 28, 2006
Real torture is having a choice between jumping 110 stories to your death or staying where you are and burning to death
Cheney was then asked: "Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?"
The vice president responded: "It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president 'for torture.' We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."
Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, took issue with Cheney's remarks, issuing a statement saying: "What's really a no-brainer is that no U.S. official, much less a vice president, should champion torture. Vice President Cheney's advocacy of water-boarding sets a new human rights low at a time when human rights is already scraping the bottom of the Bush administration barrel."
Late Friday, Cheney told reporters aboard Air Force Two: "I have said that the interrogation program for a selected number of detainees is … one of the most valuable intelligence programs we have. I believe it has allowed us to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States. I did not talk about specific techniques and won't. I didn't say anything about water-boarding. [The interviewer] didn't even use that phrase."
Asked what "dunk in water" was referring to if not water-boarding, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said, "I will let you draw your own conclusions, because you clearly have."
One thing the LA Times leaves out is that the reporter then pressed on saying, "What could a dunk in the water possibly mean?" and Tony Snow responded, "Perhaps a dunk in the water."
