Ex Spook Director: Cheney is "Vice President For Torture"

In an interview on England's ITV news yesterday, former CIA Director Stansfield Turner said the U.S. vice president was damaging America by overseeing policies tha encourage torture of possible terrorist suspects. The former head spook (under President Carter) went on to call Cheney the "vice president for torture."

Stansfield said that torture is condoned and even approved by the Bush government. The American Senate says torture should be banned - whatever the justification. But President Bush has threatened to veto their ruling.

Replying to claims that the US does not use torture, Admiral Turner, who ran the CIA from 1977 to 1981, said: "I do not believe him".

Admiral Turner claims secret CIA prisons used for torture are known as 'black sites.'

Terrorists are picked up in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan and flown in CIA-controlled private aircraft to countries where there are secret interrogation centres, operating outside any country's jurisdiction. The Mihail-Kogalniceanu military airbase in Romania is believed to be a torture center.

Senator John McCain is having fits about all of this, of course. McCain was tortured by the North Vietnamese in Vietnam while he was a prisoner of war.

I wonder what former CIA Director/ex-President George H.W. Bush can tell us about this?
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