Liz Cheney and Fox News analyst Juan Williams clashed on Fox News Sunday over the upcoming Senate report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques (torture to us lay people).
Cheney, daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Wyoming Senatorial candidate, argued that there is ample Congressional oversight that the report is merely an attack by Democrats stating: “This is a political report. We’ve now got a report written entirely by Democratic staffers.”
On the flip side, Williams arguing that the American people deserve to know the truth:
“I think Liz Cheney is the good daughter. I love her for it. But…the American people have a right to know what the CIA is doing, to come to a judgement as to whether or not those techniques are moral and keeping with American standards, and second whether they are effective in terms of gaining information that did help us to prevent further attacks and save lives.”
“We have a situation in which robust oversight of intelligence has been lacking since 9/11. I think Congress has run the other direction, and said, ‘If you’re critical you can be called unpatriotic, you can be said to be a crazy liberal.’”
You can watch the two of them debate, below, followed by a transcript.
TRANSCRIPT:
WALLACE: Right. I want to switch subjects. Because as we discuss with General Hayden, the Senate Intelligence Committee this week voted to release its report on enhanced interrogation alleging that the CIA has misled the public about the severity and the success of the enhanced interrogation program. This was obviously a program that your dad was instrumental in supporting and helping to shape up. Here’s what chairman — the chairman of the intelligence committee Dianne Feinstein said this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, D-CALIF.: It is now abundantly clear that in an effort to prevent further terrorist attacks after 9/11 and bring those responsible to justice, the CIA did make some serious mistakes. And that they haunt us to this day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: She talked about it as a stain on the country. Question, Senator Feinstein, right or wrong?
CHENEY: I think Senator — I think it’s very sad to see Senator Feinstein do what she is doing. From what we’ve seen in terms of the press reports about this report, it was written entirely by Democratic staffers as General Hayden said. Nobody talked to a single CIA official who was involved in the program. Some of the press reports point out that the staffers relied upon the accounts of terrorists themselves, took those at face value in terms of descriptions of what had happened in the program.
WALLACE: Well, I mean they did have hundreds of thousands, that’s one of the arguments, of documents from the CIA if we are counting it for the program.
CHENEY: But this program itself has also been the subject of investigation by the CIA Inspector General at length. We do know, look, this is a program that will be debated clearly for decades here in this country. And I think it’s fine to have the debate. But if you’re going to say that we should not have conducted the enhanced interrogation program, if you’re going to say we shouldn’t have water boarded three terrorists, then you’ve got to say that you’re willing to accept consequences of that and you’ve got to be willing to say how many American lives would you have been willing to put at risk because you didn’t want to waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and you also have to recognize that we have other documents that have been declassified, frankly, you know, six years ago about the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah that demonstrated clearly the intelligence that was gained from those interrogations that helped to save lives and prevent attacks. And this is a political report, which, you know, we’ve seen political reports in Washington before.
JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: So, I think Liz Cheney is the good daughter. And I love her for it. But I think that if you just — if you view this as an attack on the Bush-Cheney administration, OK, that’s — and you know what? And this morning’s “Washington Post” Jose Rodriguez over — who was at the CIA, who ran the program says he doesn’t care what is in the report, he thinks it was the fact that (INAUDIBLE). But the fact is, congress should win this fight, Chris. And the reason Congress should win it is because the American people have a right to know what the CIA is doing to come to a judgment as to whether or not those techniques are moral in keeping with American standards and, secondly, whether they’re effective in terms of gaining information that did help us to prevent further attacks to save lives. But what we know right now is that we have a situation where, you know, robust oversight of intelligence has been lacking since 9/11. I think the Congress has run in the other direction and said, oh, you know, if you’re critical you can be called unpatriotic. You can be said to be a crazy liberal. So, they have not pursued it. And now you have a situation where you have…
WALLACE: I want you to give Liz time to answer this.
WILLIAMS: I will. But I think now you have a situation where there are insufficient — is insufficient oversight. We may be headed back to a time where you — like (INAUDIBLE) like Senator Church had back in the ’70s where you have to look at what the CIA is doing.
WALLACE: All right.
WILLIAMS: We have NSA, Snowden, Rand Paul.
LIZ CHENEY: I want to start by agreeing with Juan that we need more congressional oversight of Benghazi, for example. But, look, we’ve had in terms of oversight, this program when it began back in 2002-2003 when people like, say, David Rockefeller were involved where chairman of the committee, vice chairman of the committee ranking, they were briefed on the program. There has been oversight of this program. There have been intelligence.
WALLACE: Your dad informed me that he repeatedly briefed them on the program.
LIZ CHENEY: Exactly. Briefed on the program, briefed on the techniques. By the way, our own people were put through these techniques in the SEAL program as they went through training. The program saved lives. We’ve now got a report that is written entirely by Democratic staffers. Nobody is saying we shouldn’t have oversight, Juan. But you cannot say you have a report that’s been selectively leaked, written entirely by Democratic staffers. If you want to have oversight of a program, you and I can both agree you have got to talk to people that ran the program. You can’t have a fair report.
WALLACE: Republicans not only wouldn’t participate, they don’t want this released. If it wasn’t…
LIZ CHENEY: You can’t have a fair report that doesn’t talk to people that ran the program.
WILLIAMS: I’m just telling you, people, because it’s so politicized, because it is viewed as an attack on Bush-Cheney after 9/11 when they were trying to — legitimately trying to protect us as Americans, nobody is saying anything but that, but the fact is the Republicans wouldn’t participate. People not only wouldn’t cooperate, they tried to spy on the U.S. Senate.
WALLACE: 15 seconds for the final word and we’ve got to move on.
LIZ CHENEY: I just want to say I have missed Juan so much.
(LAUGHTER)
LIZ CHENEY: Juan has been gone. And I think that I also would like to wish Juan’s four-year-old granddaughter…
WILLIAMS: Grandson.
LIZ CHENEY: Happy birthday today. And you are…
WALLACE: That was worth 15 seconds.
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