Last week, outgoing US Vice-President Dick Cheney made a series of remarkable comments in his exclusive interview with ABC. Cheney admitted to playing a role in the authorization of the use of waterboarding and other ‘aggressive interrogation techniques’, defended the decision to listen-in on domestic phone calls, and essentially provided broad approval for all the actions taken by his government over his tenure. In the first part of our interview with Michael Ratner, Michael gives his analysis of both the significance of the interview, and what he believes are Cheney’s motivations for such an uncharacteristic offering of information from the notoriously secretive VP.
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Michael Ratner
Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. He is currently a legal adviser to Wikileaks and Julian Assange. He and CCR brought the first case challenging the Guantanamo detentions and continue in their efforts to close Guantanamo. He taught at Yale Law School, and Columbia Law School, and was President of the National Lawyers Guild. His current books include Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in the Twenty-First Century America, and Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder.
NOTE: Mr. Ratner speaks on his own behalf and not for any organization with which he is affiliated.
