Dick Cheney Takes Parting Shots

During Dick Cheney's interview with ABC's Jonathan Karl, the vice president disagreed with Karl Rove's statement last week that if pre-war intelligence indicated Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction the United States would not have gone to war. Cheney argued that we would have gone in, saying, "[Saddam Hussein] had a long reputation and record of having started two wars. Of having brutalized and killed hundreds of thousands of people, some of them with weapons of mass destruction in his own country."

Cheney also told ABC that Guantanamo Bay's detention camp should remain open until the end of the War on Terror. He said he did not know when that would be. Terror, incidentally, has been in existence... forever.

Cheney expressed doubts that President-elect Barack Obama will close the camp or give up any of the broadened authority Cheney fought to bring to the executive branch. Cheney told Rush Limbaugh, "Once [the Obama administration] get[s] here and they're faced with the same problems we deal with every day, then they will appreciate some of the things we've put in place."

Of waterboarding, Cheney said that he supported the process of getting it cleared. He called waterboarding, "a remarkably successful effort, and I think the results speak for themselves." Actually, they don't, since we have no idea what information waterboarded detainees have provided.

Cheney's farewell media push culminates with an hour long interview on Fox News Sunday.