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Opinion: With interrogation docs out, Cheney asks Obama to now release secret memos on what those techniques discovered

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Former Vice president Dick Cheney Former vice president Dick Cheney is back.

Sure, you say, he’s been all over since Jan. 20 knocking the new Obama administration for weakening U.S. national security.

This time though, two interesting points by the longtime Washington power denizen:

One, appearing on Fox News’ Hannity show tonight and tomorrow, Cheney says he’s got no problem with the Obama crew blaming the previous administration for inherited problems, as they’ve done so frequently since taking their oaths.

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“There is a great temptation for a new administration to come in,” Cheney says, “and when you find a problem, obviously, to blame it on your predecessor. We did it.”

We have two videos of the Cheney interview below.

But what bothers Cheney this week is not so much that President Obama released the Justice Dept’s memos on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques in recent years.

It’s that the new president simultaneously withheld other classified memos that show what those interrogation techniques produced, the information that, Cheney says, those interrogations successfully helped prevent another attack on the homeland since 9/11. The results too, should be part of the national security debate, Cheney adds.

“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure,” Cheney tells Hannity, “is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified.”

“I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven’t announced this up until now, I haven’t talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.”

“And I’ve now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions.”

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See Obama talk to CIA employees today on video below before Cheney’s demand.

-- Andrew Malcolm

See another Cheney Hannity video below.

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