WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney lashed out at President Obama on Sunday, saying the Justice Department's decision to investigate whether CIA operatives broke the law while interrogating terrorism suspects was politically motivated and dangerous to national security.
"I just think it's an outrageous political act that will do great damage long-term to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say," Cheney said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."
He refused to say whether he would cooperate with the Justice Department's inquiry. "It will depend on the circumstances and what I think their activities are really involved in," Cheney said.
Fox's formal interview, conducted last week at Cheney's Wyoming ranch, was his first since Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced last Monday that he was conducting a preliminary review into the actions of certain CIA interrogators who might have exceeded the techniques approved by the Bush administration's Justice Department.
Obama administration officials said they would have no comment.
Senators appearing on the Sunday talk shows also weighed in.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said Holder's inquiry is necessary and justified. "No one is above the law. And this is not a political process. This is a legal process . . . to find out whether the law was broken," she said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) expressed misgivings. She said she understood Holder's reasons for launching the probe, but "the timing of this is not very good" because the Senate Intelligence Committee, which she chairs, is investigating CIA interrogation and detention techniques.
"Candidly, I wish that the attorney general had waited," she said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
In his Fox interview, Cheney also said, as he has before, that the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation techniques" saved American lives and prevented terrorist attacks. The techniques included waterboarding, which simulates drowning. It was used repeatedly on three top Al Qaeda leaders, including 183 times on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the avowed ringleader of 9/11.
Cheney said the Obama administration's second-guessing of the Bush administration "offends the hell out of me, frankly."
