Former Vice President Dick Cheney led a parade of George W. Bush administration officials who denounced a report on harsh interrogation techniques used against terrorism suspects , saying he would `` do it again in a minute . '' Defenders of the CIA 's use of interrogation techniques used the weekend 's news programs to make a passionate case , following the release of a scathing report , composed by Senate Democrats , condemning the Bush-era practices . In an interview on NBC 's `` Meet the Press , '' Cheney said the methods described in the Senate Intelligence Committee 's report -- including mock executions , rectal feeding and sleep deprivation -- do n't amount to torture . Torture , Cheney said , `` is an American citizen on a cell phone making a last call to his four young daughters shortly before he burns to death in the upper levels of the Trade Center in New York City on 9/11 . '' `` There 's this notion that somehow there 's moral equivalence between what the terrorists do and what we do . And that 's absolutely not true , '' he said . `` We were very careful to stop short of torture . The Senate has seen fit to label their report torture . But we worked hard to stay short of that definition . '' The Republican added that he had no regrets about the techniques used by the Bush administration . He called the Senate panel 's report `` seriously flawed '' and said the committee should have talked to officials involved in the interrogation program . `` I would do it again in a minute , '' he said . Michael Mukasey , Bush 's attorney general , said the Senate panel 's investigators cherry-picked the evidence they included in the report . The report , he said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 , is `` jam-packed with untruths '' and will `` demoralize the CIA . '' `` It 's even worse than that , '' he said . `` They were cherry-picking , throwing away the cherries and they printed the pits . '' One of the report 's bombshell assertions was that the CIA kept details of its tactics from Bush . The president 's former top political adviser , Karl Rove , said that 's untrue in an interview with `` Fox News Sunday . '' Rove said Bush was briefed on the CIA 's tactics and authorized some of the specific ones that were used . `` He made the decision . He was presented , I believe , 12 techniques . He authorized the use of 10 of them , including waterboarding , '' Rove said . All Republicans were n't as defensive of the Bush administration 's tactics . Arizona Sen. John McCain argued the tactics outlined in the report do amount to torture , and said he would `` urge everyone to just read the report . '' `` These are the communications within the CIA as to what happened , '' he said on CBS 's `` Face the Nation . '' `` You ca n't claim that tying someone to the floor and have them freeze to death is not torture . You ca n't say 183 times someone is waterboarded . '' McCain said calling the tactics used under Bush `` EITs '' -- an acronym for enhanced interrogation techniques -- is `` Orwellian . ''
Several George W. Bush administration officials defended the tactics used to interrogate terrorism suspects . Their defense came after the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the issue . Dick Cheney sharply criticized the report and said he 'd use the same tactics again `` in a minute ''