A defiant former Vice President Dick Cheney stood by his defense of the extreme interrogation techniques used by the CIA on detainees in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Sunday , saying , `` I would do it again in a minute . '' Critics of the interrogation tactics -- detailed in a recently released controversial Senate report -- contend they should be considered torture and regretted . But Cheney said there is no `` moral equivalence '' between the terrorists ' actions and the CIA 's interrogation techniques . `` With respect to trying to define that as torture , I come back to the proposition torture was what the al Qaeda terrorists did to 3,000 Americans on 9/11 , '' Cheney said on NBC 's `` Meet the Press '' on Sunday . `` There 's no comparison between that and what we did with the respect to enhanced interrogation . '' The former vice president also dispelled the report 's findings that then-President George W. Bush was unaware of the techniques taking place , saying that Bush authorized the tactics , and the report detailing otherwise is a `` lie . '' `` We got the authorization from the President and authorization from the Justice Department to go forward with the program , '' Cheney said . `` It worked . '' Cheney also said he believed the involuntary rectal feeding and hydration tactic revealed in the report was not , in his mind , considered torture , but rather a medical procedure , despite medical experts denouncing the tactic as ineffective and not medically justified . `` That does not meet the definition of what was used in the program , '' Cheney said . RELATED : Senate torture report restarts debate . Cheney called the report `` seriously flawed , '' contending that the analysis was conducted in a partisan fashion and was released without speaking to anyone who knew anything about the program . `` It was based on , done only by , Democratic staff , '' Cheney told CNN on Sunday . `` It 's very , very poor piece of work . It should not be used to judge the agency or the program . ''
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he supports the CIA 's Bush-era interrogation tactics . He also said that waterboarding is torture and should be banned, but not necessarily outlawed. Cheney called the recently released Senate report on the practices `` seriously flawed ''