Powell Aide Blasts Cheney

Dick Cheney has been saying that President Obama’s banning of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” will endanger American lives. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Colin Powell when he was secretary of state, calls his bluff: “My investigations have revealed to me—vividly and clearly—that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering ‘the Cheney methods of interrogation’, simply shut down. … What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the ‘Cheney interrogation methods’ will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?” Wilkerson adds that the harsh interrogations were “not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.”