Cheney defends Bush-era interrogation policies as lawful and necessary News
Cheney defends Bush-era interrogation policies as lawful and necessary

[JURIST] Former US vice president Dick Cheney [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] on Thursday defended national security policies [speech transcript] of the Bush administration. Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) [organization website], Cheney criticized many of the security policies of President Barack Obama [official profile] and described how the 9/11 terrorist attacks affected subsequent decisions to defend the country. Maintaining that accurate intelligence is necessary to any strategy, Cheney defended the use of force to obtain timely information as being granted by Article II [text] of the US Constitution and the Authorization for Use of Military Force [text]. The former vice president discussed the highly contested enhanced interrogation techniques [JURIST news archive] used on suspected terrorists, stating that such techniques were the only way to obtain information necessary to the safety of the country and that he remains a "strong proponent" of the practice. He maintained that the use of the controversial interrogations "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people." Shifting his focus to the current administration's handling of Bush-era policies, Cheney criticized the recent release of interrogation documents [JURIST report], stating that:

when … the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth. The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.

Additionally, Cheney expressed dismay at the possible prosecution [JURIST news archive] of those who approved the techniques, criticizing the criminalization of a previous administration's policies. He also said that the attention directed at the interrogations will only distract from the government's duty to protect the country and that banning such techniques in the future is a matter of "recklessness cloaked in righteousness." Cheney went on to discuss the planned closing [JURIST news archive] of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, saying that the decision came with little deliberation and expressing concern for releasing the detainees into the US for trial and imprisonment.

Also Thursday, Obama delivered a national security speech [transcript; JURIST report] in which he reaffirmed his commitment to closing Guantanamo Bay and his plans to try the detainees in US federal courts. Obama also addressed growing concerns about accepting detainees from the detention facility into the US, stating that federal super-max prisons are sufficiently secure. Cheney and Obama's speeches came a day after the US Senate passed an amendment [JURIST report] eliminating $80 million intended to be used for the closure of Guantanamo until the president provides a "comprehensive, responsible plan" to do so. In April, Obama said that the memos that Cheney and others have urged him to release [Washington Post report], to show the results of enhanced interrogation techniques, do not prove [JURIST report] that the American people are any safer.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.