The White House on Monday fired back after former Vice President Dick Cheney called the Obama administration’s decision to open a probe into alleged CIA abuses an “outrageous political act.”
White House Press Secretary Roberts Gibbs broadly dismissed Cheney’s comments on “FOX News Sunday” as typical and unfounded.
“This is the same song and dance we’ve heard since literally the first day of our administration,” Gibbs said. “The vice president … clearly had his facts on a number of things wrong.”
Gibbs did not call out Cheney on specific misstatements, but suggested the former vice president’s criticism about a newly formed unit responsible for interrogating high-value detainees was off base. After Cheney ridiculed the unit, Gibbs said it would have participants from several law enforcement agencies and dismissed the notion that the White House would be making interrogation decisions.
“I’m not entirely sure that Dick Cheney’s predictions on foreign policy have borne a whole lot of fruit over the last eight years in a way that has been either positive or, to the best of my recollection, very correct,” Gibbs told reporters.
The rebuke came after Cheney lashed out at the administration during an interview on “FOX News Sunday.”
He called Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to appoint a prosecutor to investigate possible abuse of prisoners under the Bush administration a “terrible” move that sets a “terrible precedent.”
“It’s an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long-term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say,” Cheney said.
