PHOENIX , Arizona ( CNN ) -- Vice President Dick Cheney defended the Bush administration 's record on prisoner interrogations , telling a veterans ' group that its use of `` alternative '' techniques against suspects was legal and proper . Vice President Dick Cheney , in June with President Bush , says torture at Abu Ghraib was `` the misdeeds of a few . '' `` No nation in the world takes human rights more seriously than the United States , '' Cheney said at the American Legion 's annual convention . `` The policies of our country comply with our law , which prohibits torture . We 're proud of our country and what it stands for . We expect all who serve America to conduct themselves with honor , and we enforce the rules . '' President Bush acknowledged in 2006 that top operatives of the al Qaeda terrorist movement had been held in CIA custody and subjected to what he called `` alternative '' interrogation techniques . One was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , the admitted mastermind of the September 11 , 2001 , attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people . Cheney said the CIA program involved `` tough customers and tough interrogations , '' but said the information obtained from prisoners prevented attacks and saved American lives . Although Americans were `` rightly outraged '' by the 2004 revelations of Iraqis being abused and tortured by U.S. troops at Iraq 's Abu Ghraib prison , he said , people who broke the law in that case were punished . `` The misdeeds of a few should never be used to slander the good and decent Americans who go to work every day to keep our country safe , '' Cheney said . The White House has consistently denied that the United States practices torture , but CIA officials have admitted to using at least one technique -- `` waterboarding '' -- that has been considered a war crime in the past . Top Bush administration officials , including Cheney lawyer David Addington , were involved in drafting the legal justification for those techniques , a former aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell told a congressional committee in June . Critics , including the American Civil Liberties Union , decry waterboarding as torture and have demanded a stop to it . Some in Congress also have criticized waterboarding as a violation of the Geneva Conventions that could imperil U.S. soldiers should they ever be captured .
Cheney : U.S. policies `` comply with our law , which prohibits torture '' and we don't use it. " CIA has admitted `` waterboarding , '' considered a war crime in the past .