these are not torture. these are techniques that we know work. that debate is over. it worked. it got the intelligence. it wasn t torture. it was legal. all false. let s bring in the president of the foundation for democracy, defense of democracy s cliff may and also former cia officer jack rice. gentlemen, good to have you with us tonight. jack, ms. cheney is obviously referring to waterboarding there. she says it worked. it wasn t torture. it was legal. what about that? well, ed, thanks for having me on the program. first of all, it was torture and guess what? the reason the bush administration determined that it was legal was it hand picked the lawyers who had said it was legal and asked them then if it was. it is not exactly shocking but if you ask whether it had an impact it did. it had a negative impact. i m quite confident like your prior guest matthew alexander that it made this much more difficult, it took much longer, and i think osama bin laden
tonight s question, will republicans succeed in rewriting history? text a for yes. text b for no to 622639 and of course you can always go to our new blog at ed.msnbc.com. we ll bring you the results later on in the show. joining us now is matthew alexander a former military interrogator who tracked down senior al qaeda leaders in iraq. he is also the author of the book kill or capture? great to have you with us tonight, matthew. does dick cheney know what the hell he is talking about? i remember senator biden during a foreign services committee hearing saying don t pay atoengs cheney because he doesn t know what the hell he is talking about. what side do you fall on? i am saying the same thing i have been saying. these people who put in place the policy for torture and supported torture will not talk about the long-term cost of that policy. you will never hear former vice president dick cheney talk about the fact that it was al qaeda s
i m quite confident like your prior guest matthew alexander that it made this much more difficult, it took much longer, and i think osama bin laden would have been found earlier but for the fact that torture was involved and what it did throughout the middle east. cliff, would you defend waterboarding on all the points liz cheney made? i m going to defend my own position if you don t mind, ed, and start with this. sure, sure. that is to say, look. in this particular instance we do know that the seed of intelligence that grew the vine that led us to find osama bin laden came about through coercive techniques of interrogation. in one instance waterboarding, the other two instances sleep deprivation and probably psychological humiliation. a second i think it s important to have a little context here and that is thousands of combatants have been taken into custody. about 100 have end eed up in th cia program. about 30 have suffered any coercive, enhanced interrogation techniques. o
as to what our military has done and how the commander-in-chief acted. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight s question, will republicans succeed in rewriting history? text a for yes. text b for no to 622639 and of course you can always go to our new blog at ed.msnbc.com. we ll bring you the results later on in the show. joining us now is matthew alexander a former military interrogator who tracked down senior al qaeda leaders in iraq. he is also the author of the book kill or capture? great to have you with us tonight, matthew. does dick cheney know what the hell he is talking about? i remember senator biden during a foreign services committee hearing saying don t pay atoengs cheney because he doesn t know what the hell he is talking about. what side do you fall on? i am saying the same thing i have been saying. these people who put in place the policy for torture and supported torture will not talk about the long-term cost of that