Parsing Cheney

by Chris Bodenner

The former vice president releases a statement through the Weekly Standard and, predictably, claims vindication:

The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda. This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks.

Even before that statement was released, Ackerman forsaw such language:

Cheney’s public account of these documents have conflated the difference between information acquired from detainees, which the documents present, and information acquired from detainees through the enhanced interrogation program, which they don’t. [...P]erhaps the blacked-out lines of the memos specifically claim and document that torture and only torture yielded this information. But what’s released within them does not remotely make that case.

In other words, Cheney did not write, "The documents released Monday demonstrate that Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence."