Dick Cheney on CIA torture: 'I'd do it again in a minute'

Former US Vice President Dick Cheney has defended the CIA's brutal torture tactics saying the officers involved in the actions should be "praised" and "decorated".

"Torture is what the al Qaeda terrorists did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11. I'd do it again in a minute," Cheney told Chuck Todd on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday (14 December 2014), reported the National Journal.

"Torture to me, Chuck, is an American citizen on his cell phone making a last call to his four young daughters shortly before he burns to death in the upper levels of the Trade Center in New York."

When asked about the morality and legality behind the "enhanced" techniques outlined in the Senate torture report, such as rectal feeding, Cheney replied that while such techniques were not approved, he believes they were carried out due to "medical reasons".

The Senate report however, reveals no medical reasoning behind the rectal feeding.

While the CIA Director John Brennan said it is "unknowable" if the enhanced interrogation practices yielded any benefit, Cheney vehemently believes otherwise saying, "it worked, it absolutely worked."

Cheney also failed to reason that at least 26 out of the 119 detainees were held without a charge.

"I'm more concerned with the bad guys that were released than the few that were, in fact, innocent. Waterboarding, the way we did it, was in fact not torture," said Cheney.

In another denial of the Senate torture report's findings, Cheney said former President George W. Bush was fully on board with the interrogation techniques calling the report's conclusion that he was unaware a "cheap shot" and a "flat-out lie."

"[Bush] knew what we were doing, he authorized it, he approved it," said Cheney.