Sen. John McCain disagrees with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim that enhanced interrogation techniques helped keep the country safe.
“I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan,” McCain told CBS’ Bob Schieffer Sunday.
“I think these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq… I think that the ability of us to work with our allies was harmed. And I believe that information, according go the FBI and others, could have been gained through other methods,” said McCain.
McCain disagreed with Attorney General Holder’s decision to probe interrogation techniques that went beyond legal recommendations, saying he agreed with President Barack Obama that the country needs to “look forward,” not back.
“But the damage that [enhanced interrogation] did to America’s image in the world is something we’re still on the way to repairing,” added McCain. “This is an ideological struggle, as well as a physical one.”
Video of Sen. McCain’s appearance on Face the Nation follows below.
WILL: TRUTH COMMISSION NEEDED
Conservative columnist George Will has added his voice to those who are calling for a truth commission to investigate the use of enhanced interrogation techiniques.
“We ought to have a commission [as] Fred Hiatt in The Washington Post suggests this morning,” said Will.
“Khalid Sheikh Mohamed was reticent,” Will said. “He was waterboarded 183 times and became loquacious. Did that have something to do with that? And was he useful? Because whether or not these techniques are immoral, or how immoral they are, surely depends on whether they worked.”
Video follows below.
This video of Sen. John McCain on CBS’ Face the Nation was broadcast Aug. 30, 2009.