Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T06:32:46.641Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

Chapter Nine - A Theology of Torture

T. Walter Herbert
Get access

Summary

Advertising the Dark Side

Five days after 9/11, Vice-President Cheney appeared on ‘Meet the Press’ with Tim Russert, and made a point of mentioning certain measures that he couldn't talk about openly.

I'm going to be careful here, Tim…. We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion…You need to have on the payroll some very unsavory characters, if, in fact, you're going to be able to learn all that needs to be learned in order to forestall these kinds of activities. It is a mean, nasty, dangerous dirty business.

Cheney's meaning could hardly have been clearer: the administration had adopted a torture policy. It was part of a secret program whose details were being worked out at the CIA as Cheney spoke, to which President Bush affixed his signature the next day. Yet, Cheney disavowed what he was saying in the act of saying it.

Cheney's double-talk is a clue to the complicated impulses that were summoned to life within the White House leadership, and the public at large, by the humiliation 9/11 inflicted. To the end of the Bush Administration the torture program remained an official secret, yet its existence and much of its character was common knowledge.

Type
Chapter
Information
Faith-Based War
From 9/11 to Catastrophic Success in Iraq
 , pp. 148 - 169
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×