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Cheney’s Scare Tatics

Contributed By: David S. Cloud & MSNBC | February 6, 2009

Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s warnings about the risks of closing Guantanamo Bay prison and changing other Bush-era policies this week angered Democrats and some top counter-terrorism experts, who said Cheney was reviving the same scare tactics voters had rejected in electing Barack Obama.   Cheney made his comments in an interview this week with Politico in which he unyieldingly defended the detention facility and coercive interrogations of terrorism suspects — and warned that changing course would invite another mass-casualty terror attack potentially worse than the ones on Sept. 11.   Many experts, even those who disagree sharply on most issues with Cheney, concur that a large-scale unconventional attack remains the most dangerous national security threat, if not necessarily the most likely. Obama himself has warned of such a catastrophic attack.   But Cheney’s comments revived a debate that will long outlast the presidential campaign — over what are the best tactics to prevent another attack, and whether the U.S. is more or less safe with Guantanamo open, by using harsh interrogation techniques and other controversial steps that Mr. Obama has taken steps to terminate.

James Carafano, a homeland security expert at the Heritage Foundation, argued that Cheney was right to emphasize the dangers of future attacks. He argued that keeping in place many of the most controversial elements of the Bush administration’s counterterrorist tactics was vital to prevent future attacks.

Obama’s argument is that such tactics make the country less safe by inciting anti-U.S. feeling among Arabs and Muslims. What is needed, administration aides say, is more attention on stabilizing Afghanistan and on eliminating Al Qaeda havens in Pakistan, which he has promised to carry out.   But even Obama has been careful about how far he goes in dismantling Bush terror policies.   While he has issued an executive order banning harsh interrogation techniques, the order leaves open the possibility of the CIA employing such methods on prisoners captured in the future. And while has called for a plan to close Guantanamo within a year, he has not committed himself to any steps that would require release of the 14 so-called “high value” Al Qaeda detainees.   Nor has Mr. Obama revealed whether he plans changes in the wiretapping rules governing when the National Security Agency can intercept calls and emails involving U.S. residents as part of terrorism investigations. During the campaign, Obama voted for a measure later signed by Bush that allows the warrantless wiretapping program to be reviewed by a secret federal intelligence court.   In his interview, Cheney implied that the new administration was scrapping all the Bush methods. But Carafano argues that the differences on the most sensitive counter-terrorism tactics will end up being more rhetorical than real — and that Obama is like to keep in place much of the Bush approach.

The White House had no comment on the Cheney interview, according to Ben Chang, a spokesman at the National Security Council.   Other Democrats were outraged at Cheney’s assertions that the new administration will backtrack on protecting Americans. “It’s time to retire the fear card,” said Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat.“I’m sure that Cheney feels that he operated correctly during his years in the vice presidency. I get that. But I think there was a huge cost to the approach he took.”