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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has died at the age of 84. He was a key architect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the so-called U.S. war on terror after 9/11. Cheney was a leading defender of the U.S. torture program and expanding the power of the presidency and vice presidency. Just days after the 9/11 attacks, Cheney appeared on Meet the Press and said the U.S. would have to work on what he called the dark side.
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful.
AMY GOODMAN: Vice President Cheney would go on to push for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 under the false pretext of preventing Saddam Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction.
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: In the case of Iraq, we have a regime that is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents and is, by all available evidence, speeding up its nuclear weapons program.
AMY GOODMAN: Over the years, Dick Cheney repeatedly defended the U.S. invasion, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and destabilized the Middle East.
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the right — same course of action.
AMY GOODMAN: Cheney was widely accused of pushing for the U.S. invasion of Iraq to benefit his former company, Halliburton, the world’s second-largest oil services company. In 2007, the former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan said, quote, “I’m saddened that it’s politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq War is largely about oil,” unquote.
Dick Cheney also played a key role in developing the U.S. torture program and global secret detention program. In an interview in 2008, ABC’s Jonathan Karl questioned Cheney about the treatment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was held in a secret CIA prison where he was waterboarded over a hundred times.
JONATHAN KARL: Did you authorize the tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared. That is, the agency, in effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn’t do, and they talked to me,