Dick Cheney: Senate Democrats’ CIA Report ‘Full Of Crap’

WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Dick Cheney ripped the recently released Senate Democrats’ report on CIA enhanced interrogation techniques Wednesday, calling it “full of crap,” and a “terrible piece of work” that was “deeply flawed.”

Cheney, speaking on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier,” said the controversial techniques used on militants had been previously tested and that the interrogations, in fact, produced results.

Cheney had strongly defended the tactics even prior to the interview, including waterboarding and rectal hydration.

“What are you prepared to do to get the truth against future attacks against the United States?” Cheney asked.

Cheney also refuted claims that President George W. Bush was kept in the dark about the interrogations.

“I think he knew everything he wanted to know and needed to know,” Cheney told Baier.

A Democrat-led Senate panel released a scathing report Tuesday on CIA interrogation practices amid warnings from lawmakers that the findings could “endanger the lives of Americans” — a concern the Obama administration apparently shared as it put more than 6,000 Marines overseas on high alert.

A Democrat-led Senate panel headed up by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) released the CIA report on enhanced interrogation Tuesday despite dire warnings from lawmakers and intel officials. These warnings, which were even echoed by some within the Obama administration, contended the findings would “endanger the lives of Americans” all over the world.

The report, from the Senate intelligence committee, claimed the interrogation techniques used were “brutal and far worse” than the CIA represented to lawmakers. Further, the report claimed the tactics were not effective and the spy agency gave “inaccurate” information about it to Congress and the White House.

Feinstein alleged on the Senate floor on Tuesday that the CIA techniques in some cases amounted to “torture.”

“History will judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say ‘never again’,” she said on the floor. “There may never be the right time to release this report. … But this report is too important to shelve indefinitely.”

Jose Rodriguez, the ex-CIA chief in charge of the enhanced interrogation program, said Senate Democrats released a bogus partisan report aimed to throw the CIA under the bus in order to cover for themselves. He said both Republican and Democratic leadership in the upper and lower Houses of Congress knew, because they were briefed over 30 times over the life of the program.

CIA officials have been pushing back hard on the claims made in the report, including that the interrogation didn’t produce intelligence and that the CIA lied to the Bush administration regarding the tactics.

Former CIA Directors George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden, and former CIA Deputy Directors John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland and Stephen R. Kappes, penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal claiming, in fact, the program did work and provided plenty detailed accounts of actionable intelligence gathering to prove it.