Cheney, water-boarding, and a ‘no-brainer’

October 27, 2006

It certainly sounded like Dick Cheney had admitted that U.S. interrogators subjected terrorist suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called “water-boarding.” In an on-air chat with Scott Hennen from WDAY in Fargo, N.D., Cheney appeared to say that the administration doesn’t regard water-boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. “It’s a no-brainer for me,” Cheney said.

However, as several alert readers noticed, the White House is backpedaling.

The White House said Friday that Vice President Dick Cheney was not talking about a torture technique known as “water boarding” when he said dunking terrorism suspects in water during questioning was a “no-brainer.” […]

Earlier, White House press secretary Tony Snow denied that Cheney had endorsed water boarding.

“You know as a matter of common sense that the vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding. Never would, never does, never will,” Snow said. “You think Dick Cheney’s going to slip up on something like this? No, come on.”

As Josh Marshall responded, “You mean, Dick Cheney totally muff something out of mix of arrogance and incompetence? Who could ever imagine that?”

Look, this need not be complicated. Cheney was asked if “a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives.” The vice president replied, “Well, it’s a no-brainer for me, but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture.”

In what other context could anyone seriously believe Cheney was speaking in? Tony Snow told reporters, “The vice president says he was talking in general terms about a questioning program that is legal to save American lives.”

But that’s just it — the terms weren’t general. On the contrary, Hennen was being rather specific. Cheney, instead of sticking to the usual Bush gang line (“We don’t talk about techniques”), let the moment get the better of him. The VP acknowledged, perhaps accidentally, not only the administration’s policy but also his own beliefs about the technique.

The White House may not like it now, but that’s what happened, and so far, their explanations are laughable. As reader J.G. put it, the Bush gang “needs to call the Maytag man; the spin machine is broken.”

I find quite interesting Snow’s use of the term “slip up,” which itself seems like a bit of a slip up to me. “Slip up” implies, at least, an intentional cover-up or spin on a fact that the speaker knows or believes to be true. In other words, it doesn’t seem as though Snow is denying that Cheney actually supports waterboarding; rather, he seems to be suggesting that Cheney is too astute a politician to explicitly admit such a thing to the media. Perhaps Snow himself slipped up here?

  • Everyone in the White House and CIA knows that prisoners have to be treated with kindness and respect and in accord with the Geneva Conventions if they are likely to reveal any useful intelligence. Critics, therefore, have completely misinterpreted Cheney’s comments. By “dunk in the water” he was clearly referring to recreational swims that prisoners are allowed in the midst of their interrogation as a break from the stress that naturally occurs during questioning. How else can any rational person interpret his meaning? ☺

  • Sqwak Sqwak Water Sqwak Dunk! Sqwak Sqwak!

    Oh Dick! I think the American people are in the “Last throes, if you will” of puting up with this complete bushit!

    Tomorrow Snow will say that he didn’t mean to say Cheney slipped up (valid point James), what he meant to say was that we all know what Cheney meant and they do not discuss techniques.

    Sqwak!

  • I’ve always found it ridiculous on its face that the administration has kept up this hoax of “we need the right to torture prisoners but we would never torture our prisoners” as policy. It was inevitable that they would admit that the latter was false.

  • Is it any wonder this Admin thinks their subjects Americans are that stupid? ShrubCo’s tenure in office has been a prolonged game of Watch What the Proles Will Swallow. I bet Cheney is giggling over a steaming bowl of babies’ brains right now.

    Next they’ll engage in public human sacrifice and tell us we didn’t really see Dick tearing a man’s beating heart from his chest.

    tAiO (aka J.G.)

  • Cheney’s base – the people who don’t know the difference between suspected and convicted – understood the code.

  • Snow said. “You think Dick Cheney’s going to slip up on something like this?”

    Yes Way. The man has no human qualitities nor the slightest degree of compasion. He was in what he thought was a friendly venue and he gave the “wrong” answer (truthful, but not Rovian approved) to a question.

    And He Ain’t That Smart Snowjob.

  • Maybe he meant it’s a “no-brainer” because the torture victims, being oxygen deprived from continually being under water, will have had such significant brain damage, as to be essentially brain dead after the procedure. Yeh, that’s the ticket. But I wasn’t CONDONING it, or anything. Hehe.

  • I think Bush, Cheney, and Snow are being evasive. I don’t think they are being forthright. Maybe they should be water-boarded. Perhaps that would help them avoid making slip ups. Maybe every time they slip up, they could have a dip in the tank. It’s a no brainer.

    Maybe everybody that voted for the Torture Act should be water-boarded so they will know what they voted for. Another no brainer.

  • Ah yes, the old “argument from stupidity” — he couldn’t possibly have been talking about torture techniques, because that would have been stupid!

  • I think Bush, Cheney, and Snow are being evasive. I don’t think they are being forthright. Maybe they should be water-boarded.
    comment by Jim B

    But Jim, what if they were already being forthright? How would the torturers know whether to believe them or not? Oh.

  • If nothing else, Cheney certainly has credibility in identifying a no-brainer. After all, he’s been working with one for six years.

  • I think that being White House Press Secretary has to be one of the crappiest jobs in Washington. You have to get up in front of the press corps and defend whatever degree of bullshit the administration feeds you.

    Poor Tony Snow , having to defend Darth Cheney’s desire for torture. I’d have way more respect for these guys if they just came out and said, “We feel that sometimes in order to get them talking we have to use torture. We’re not trying to kill them or cause excessive damage to their person; we just want answers.”

    In defense of Prickly Dick, here’s Tony’s list of facts for people with no brains:

    1) “No brainer number one is, we don’t torture.”

    OK, I agree. You’d have to have no brain to believe that we haven’t tortured.

    2) “No brainer number two, we don’t break the law, our own or international law.”

    Again, I agree. You’d have to have rocks in you head to believe that “we” haven’t broken a number of laws, both domestic and international.

    3) “No brainer number three, the Vice President doesn’t give away questioning techniques.”

    That rather skirts around the issue, doesn’t it, Tony? At the very least, Cheney revealed that he’s all for the “questioning technique” of forcing people to bob for apples where their ain’t no apples to bob for. Where’s your dick, Dick? Call it what it is; be a man. Can someone actually answer questions when dunked under water? Would those responses be comprehendible? Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle. I say just put the suspect in a sleeping bag and suffocate them to death. Oh wait, that’s right, we’ve already done that. But death ain’t torture.

    4) “And number four, the administration does believe in legal questioning techniques of known killers whose questioning can in fact be used to save American lives.”

    Let me translate: The administration does believe in torturing suspected killers using the “questioning techniques” vaguely outlined in the Detainee “Torture” Treatment Act because that torture may result in saving American lives.

    Come on Tony, just tell it like it is. Why couch the truth in all that namby-pamby polite language.

    We need to come clean on this one folks; otherwise it weakens our credibility and makes us look hypocritical. I mean, perhaps we should simply say that our torture is a more civil form of torture than those techniques practiced elsewhere. Compared to current and past torture techniques used in places such as China, Russia, and Saddam’s Iraq, there’s a much lower chance of death or critical injury with our forms of torture. Not to say that a suspect might not die on occasion, but that’s very unlikely to happen and is therefore a negligible concern. I mean after all, what’s the significance of the death of a suspected terrorist anyway?

    We’re not pouring acid on these people, or ripping off their thumb nails, or caning the bottoms of their feet until their nose bleeds, or hooking up electrodes to their genitalia…I think. So what’s all the fuss over a little rough treatment with the odd chance of mortal injury?

    http://www.LetThePeopleJudge.com

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