FORMER US vice-president Dick Cheney personally oversaw at least four briefings with senior members of Congress about controversial interrogation programmes, part of a secretive and forceful defence he mounted throughout 2005 in an effort to maintain support for the harsh techniques used against detainees.
The Cheney-led briefings came at some of the most critical moments for the programme, as congressional oversight committees were threatening to investigate or even terminate the techniques used in interrogations, according to lawmakers, congressional officials and current and former intelligence officials.
Mr Cheney’s role in helping handle intelligence issues in the Bush administration has been well documented, particularly his advocacy for the use of aggressive methods and warrantless wiretapping against alleged terrorists.
But his hands-on role in defending the interrogation programme to lawmakers has not been previously publicised.
The CIA made no mention of the former vice-president’s role in documents delivered to Capitol Hill last month which listed every lawmaker who had been briefed on “enhanced interrogation techniques” since 2002. For meetings that were actually overseen by Mr Cheney, the agency told the intelligence committees that information about who oversaw those briefings was “not available”.
The revelations do not shed light on whether top Democrats, as Republicans contend, were aware that waterboarding was being employed on suspected terrorists as early as the fall of 2002. An official who witnessed one of Mr Cheney’s briefing sessions with lawmakers said the vice-president’s presence appeared calculated to give additional heft to the CIA’s case for maintaining the programme. – (Los Angeles Times-Washington Post service)