DICK Cheney has declared he has no qualms about the harsh treatment of terrorist suspects during the Bush administration, even if CIA interrogators acted outside legal authorisation.

"It was good policy, it was properly carried out, it worked very, very well," the former US vice-president said yesterday.
Mr Cheney's comments came during a blistering attack on Barack Obama, claiming he ducked responsibility after doing nothing to prevent a full investigation into the methods used to interrogate accused terrorists in the Bush era.

According to Mr Cheney, the US President had set a terrible precedent that was intensely partisan after his Attorney-General, Eric Holder, last week announced a criminal investigation into the CIA actions.

Mr Holder says he had no choice after the release of a CIA inspector-general's report from 2004 that detailed "unauthorised, improvised and inhuman" practices, in which CIA interrogators knowingly went too far in questioning high-value prisoners.

So far Mr Obama has distanced himself from his Attorney-General's decision, saying he "wants to look forward, not back" and putting the responsibility on Mr Holder to make independent decisions on any prosecutions.

The scope of the investigation is said to be limited at this stage to CIA officers who exceeded their legal authorisation after the approval of harsh methods by the Bush administration and opinions by lawyers.

But Mr Cheney, speaking on Fox News, yesterday accused Mr Obama of going back on his word that there would be no looking back at the behaviour of CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the previous administration.

He claimed Mr Obama and Mr Holder were coming under pressure from the left of the Democratic Party to conduct an investigation that would not stop with the CIA, and would probably seek to have lawyers who gave opinions on the legality of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" disbarred. "It's an outrageous precedent to set, to have this kind of - I think - intensively partisan, politicised look back at the prior administration," Mr Cheney said.

Mr Holder's decision to investigate the abuses committed against detainees has created great tensions between his Justice Department and the CIA, which claims the allegations have been investigated thoroughly in the past and that further action would undermine operations vital to US security.

Jameel Jaffer, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who doggedly pursued a court order to have the CIA inspector-general's report released, has made it clear that any investigation that focuses on low-level interrogators - without pursuing those who authorised the techniques branded as torture - would be inadequate.

Mr Cheney said the interrogation techniques used were "absolutely essential" in saving thousands of American lives and preventing further attacks against the US.
He defended tactics including mock execution, threats with a handgun and power drill and the waterboarding 183 times in a month of self-proclaimed September 11 terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Mr Cheney confirmed yesterday he was the most gung-ho person in the Bush administration in seeking a pre-emptive strike against Iran to counter Tehran's developing a suspected nuclear weapons program.

"I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues," Mr Cheney said.

But the former vice-president confirmed he was overruled, as war raged in neighbouring Iraq.

While confirming he would give a "definitive view" of his relationship with George W.Bush in his upcoming memoir, Mr Cheney disputed a report last month that he believed the former president had gone soft during his second term. It was not true, he said, that he had told colleagues he was frustrated with Mr Bush at the time when his influence waned.