Dick CheneyWith the Justice Department release of the CIA memos long touted by Dick Cheney as the proof that being a sick, venal, twisted fuck enhanced interrogation torture worked/saved American lives/got us meaningful intelligence, you knew that Vice President Cankles had to say something—so that there is this statement (made to the Weekly Standard) is not a surprise:

The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda. This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks. These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of al Qaeda members and associates since 2002. The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al Qaeda to launch further mass casualty attacks against the United States. The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions. President Obama’s decision to allow the Justice Department to investigate and possibly prosecute CIA personnel, and his decision to remove authority for interrogation from the CIA to the White House, serves as a reminder, if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this Administration’s ability to be responsible for our nation’s security.

What is a surprise, however, is how lazy and transparent Dick’s obfuscation has gotten:

The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda.

That folks like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided intel is really not the point in dispute, is it now? What is argued is whether torture was necessary to extract information, if whether any credible intelligence obtained came from traditional, lawful, moral methods. The preponderance of evidence says the torture was at best superfluous, and quite possibly counterproductive—and every successive release of documents has served to reinforce this. And, with this statement, Cheney more or less admits as much.

If these documents had within them that evidence that torture saved lives, we’d have seen it; if Dead-Eye Dick truly believed that torturing his so-called high-value detainees directly produced the intelligence that stopped attacks, this would be the time for him to say so.

He clearly doesn’t. In fact, he goes out of his way not to. In fact, on a second and third reading, I would go so far as to say that Cheney doesn’t even say that the information obtained helped prevent attacks—he merely says that it “provided the bulk of the intelligence we gained about al Qaeda.” According to Dick, it was the actions of the “CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible” for preventing “mass casualty attacks.” The statement doesn’t even try to link those actions to the intel, torture or no.

That’s quite a workaround. . . and quite a walk-back. And that’s the big takeaway from what would otherwise be another forgettable, fearmongering blast from the mastermind of America’s moral debasement. Torture might have gotten Cheney excited, but it didn’t do dick.