In an interview for Politico, former Vice President Dick Cheney has defended some of the most controversial anti-terror measures adopted by the Bush administration and has suggested that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a nuclear or biological attack in coming years.
Key quotes:
"If it hadn't been for what we did - with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth - then we would have been attacked again. Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the US."
The "ultimate threat to the country", was a "9/11-type event where the terrorists are armed with something much more dangerous than an airline ticket and a box cutter - a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind" that is deployed in the middle of an American city that could kill perhaps hundreds of thousands of people.
"If you release the hard-core al-Qaeda terrorists that are held at Guantanamo, I think they go back into the business of trying to kill more Americans and mount further mass-casualty attacks. If you turn 'em loose and they go kill more Americans, who's responsible for that? When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an al-Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry".
Protecting the country is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business". "These are evil people. And we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek."
The "ultimate threat to the country", was a "9/11-type event where the terrorists are armed with something much more dangerous than an airline ticket and a box cutter - a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind" that is deployed in the middle of an American city that could kill perhaps hundreds of thousands of people.
"If you release the hard-core al-Qaeda terrorists that are held at Guantanamo, I think they go back into the business of trying to kill more Americans and mount further mass-casualty attacks. If you turn 'em loose and they go kill more Americans, who's responsible for that? When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an al-Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry".
Protecting the country is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business". "These are evil people. And we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek."
