Cheney again defends interrogation techniques

Former Vice President Dick Cheney took his campaign to defend "enhanced interrogation techniques" to NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday, saying a CIA program provided valuable information in the fight against terrorism.

"It worked, it absolutely worked," Cheney said.

"I'd do it again in a minute."

The interrogation program that has been discontinued helped the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden and other 9/11 plotters, and prevent another major attack, Cheney said.

As he did during a recent appearance on Fox News, Cheney criticized a Senate report that said certain CIA techniques amounted to illegal torture, and that the CIA lied about many of its activities.

Cheney said that "torture is what the al Qaeda terrorists did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11 -- "there is no comparison between that and what we did with respect to enhanced interrogation."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the outgoing chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said interrogation techniques that ranged from water boarding to sleep deprivation failed to produce accurate intelligence and undermined the nation's moral authority.

"The report shows that such information in fact was obtained through other means, both traditional CIA human intelligence and from other agencies," Feinstein said last week.

President Obama specifically banned water boarding and other techniques in 2009.

In his indictment of the Senate report, Cheney noted that only intelligence committee Democrats agreed with its conclusions -- "a partisan operation" -- and they did not interview CIA officials directly involved in the program.

Cheney said the program received Justice Department legal authority the program that began in the wake of 9/11 attacks, and that congressional lawmakers knew about it.

There may have been interrogation techniques that went beyond the approved program, Cheney acknowledged. Asked about reports that some detainees were subjected to rectal feeding, Cheney said: "What was done here was not one of the techniques approved."

Overall, CIA interrogators "should be praised," he said. "They should be decorated."