Al-Qaeda: Dick Cheney Calls for the Return of Enhanced Interrogation
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding played a role in tracking down Osama bin Laden and should be reinstated, former US vice president Dick Cheney said.

Another top member of the Bush administration, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, credited the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" with yielding "a major fraction" of US intelligence on al-Qaeda and called ending them a "mistake."

In one of the first acts after entering the White House in 2009, President Barack Obama suspended such methods, equating them with torture and saying they represented all that was wrong with the Bush-era "war on terror."

But the killing of bin Laden, or more exactly the way the intelligence was gathered that led the CIA to track him down, has reopened a raging controversy in the United States over their use.

Cheney, speaking on the "Fox News Sunday" program, said top intelligence officials had stated that "some of the early leads" that helped agents find bin Laden had come thanks to the harsh interrogation techniques used on terror suspects.

"All have said one way or the other that the enhanced interrogation program played a role," he said. "My guess is that's probably the case that it contributed, just as did a number of other factors."

Asked whether the methods should be reinstated if the United States were to capture a new high-value target, Cheney replied: "I certainly would advocate it. I'd be a strong supporter of it." » | Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Monday, May 09, 2011

People & Power: Interrogating a Torturer
In the past decade torture has never been very far from the headlines but the recent outbreak of protests across the Middle East has put the issue right back in the spotlight. 
Activists from Egypt to Libya, and Bahrain to Yemen have all included torture among the list of crimes allegedly committed by security forces. Understandably they want the perpetrators brought to justice.
But as our story this week demonstrates, while legal sanctions can sometimes be applied, the physical and mental scars from torture take a very long time to heal.
In the mid 1970s a coup brought a military junta to power in Argentina. Its leader General Jorge Videla was a fanatical anti-Communist who fought a five-year dirty war against opponents. More than 30,000 people were imprisoned, tortured and murdered by the army and secret police.
Though Videla was eventually convicted of crimes against humanity -- and he and other junta leaders are now back in court facing further charges, only one of the people who did the actual torturing has ever been confronted with the human cost of his crimes.
We first showed this film by Rodrigo Vazquez in 2009, but its themes are as relevant today as they were then. Some of the images are disturbing

Unchaining Cheney
Dick Cheney. Photo credit: Townhall.com
TOWNHALL: Dick Cheney is unleashed! After eight years of being nearly invisible to the media, the former vice president has come forth bearing wrath. He is now a man on a mission, an angry messenger. Very simply, Cheney believes the Obama administration is putting the United States in danger by dismantling the Bush anti-terror programs.

And Cheney has one very large point. Since the sneak attack on September 11, 2001, America has not suffered another violent terrorist episode on its soil. That is not in dispute, and the former vice president believes tough interrogations and aggressive anti-terror moves were the cornerstones of the shield.

Cheney also has two big bullets in his rhetorical arsenal. First, the Obama administration recently released classified interrogation memos but did not release the follow-up reports detailing what was gleaned by water boarding and other rough stuff. Cheney wants those memos out.

And second, there is no doubt that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi knew all about water boarding and went along with the interrogation program because the CIA told them it was vitally important for national security.

So, believing the truth is on his side, Cheney has launched a one-man jihad against the Obama administration for canceling what he believes are life-protecting anti-terror strategies. >>> By Bill O’Reilly | Saturday, May 16, 2009

Police Interrogation Proposals
MELANIE PHILLIPS: Hard on the heels of last week’s control order fiasco comes the news that the Government is planning to introduce yet another Draconian security measure.

The police may be given the power to interrogate individuals about who they are, where they have been and where they are going. Officers would thus be able to gain information about ‘matters relevant’ to terror investigations. If such people failed to stop or refused to answer questions, they could be charged with a criminal offence and fined up to £5,000.

These powers have been in operation in Northern Ireland. In an ironic twist, at the very moment that they are due to be repealed as part of the ‘normalisation’ procedures of the peace process, the Home Secretary John Reid intends to extend them to mainland Britain. This is because, as Irish terrorism recedes, a new and far more deadly threat has taken its place. Stop and question this policy (more)

Mark Alexander