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White House: VP didn't back waterboarding
Chicago Tribune
By Dan Eggen
The Washington Post
Published October 28, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The White House said Friday that Vice President Dick Cheney was not referring to an interrogation technique known as waterboarding when he told an interviewer this week that dunking terrorism suspects in water was a "no-brainer."

Instead, press secretary Tony Snow said, Cheney was talking literally about "a dunk in the water," though Snow declined to explain what that meant or whether such a tactic had been used against U.S. detainees.

The comments were aimed at calming a growing furor over comments made by Cheney during an interview with a conservative radio host, which were taken by many human-rights advocates and legal experts as an endorsement of waterboarding as a method of interrogation.

Coming two weeks before the midterm elections, Cheney's remarks prompted a wide range of figures--including Cheney's wife, Lynne--to weigh in on the issue, providing another controversy for Republicans.

In waterboarding, a prisoner is secured with his feet above his head and water is poured on a cloth over his face. Waterboarding has been specifically prohibited by the Army and widely condemned as torture by human-rights groups and international courts.

"Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" Scott Hennen of WDAY in Fargo, N.D., asked Cheney on Tuesday. "Well, it's a no-brainer for me," Cheney responded.

Cheney also said he agreed with Hennen that the debate over interrogation techniques was "a little silly" and praised the information obtained from U.S. terrorism suspects during questioning.

Hennen said in an interview Friday that he did not know precisely which technique Cheney was referring to and was only passing along a question he had heard from a listener.

"It's impossible for me to say, did the listener mean waterboarding and is waterboarding torture and that sort of thing," Hennen said. "I can't get in the vice president's head and I can't get in the listener's head."

Some lawmakers have said they believe waterboarding is now illegal under new detainee legislation approved last month, but the Bush administration has declined to say what techniques it believes are off-limits.

Asked about Cheney's remarks, President Bush did not specifically address them. But he said that "this country doesn't torture. We're not going to torture. We will interrogate people we pick up off the battlefield to determine whether or not they've got information that will be helpful to protect the country."

Legal experts and others said Friday that even if Snow's version of Cheney's remarks is correct, Cheney's comments are troubling because dunking a terrorism suspect in water as part of an interrogation would be more physically dangerous than waterboarding. The tactic also would be illegal under U.S. and international laws, they said.

Former CIA general counsel Jeffrey Smith said Cheney's comments were "irresponsible" and send a signal to U.S. interrogators that "the people at the top want you to get rough."

Snow and other Republicans argued that Cheney's remarks had been misinterpreted and that he had been talking about the value of interrogations in preventing terrorist attacks.

"That is a mighty house you are building on top of that molehill," Cheney's wife, Lynne, said during an appearance on CNN's "The Situation Room." "A mighty mountain. This is complete distortion. He didn't say anything of the kind."

At two contentious media briefings Friday, Snow repeatedly insisted that Cheney was not referring to waterboarding or any other technique, although he was at a loss to explain how being dunked in water would not also qualify as a method of interrogation.

At one point during the first briefing, a frustrated reporter asked, "So the detainees go swimming?"

"I don't know," Snow responded. "We'll have to find out."

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

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