Published time: July 17, 2014 09:11
Cheney made a rare appearance, together with his wife Lynne and daughter
Liz, on Monday to be interviewed by Politico's Mike Allen in Washington.A live
interview with former Vice-President Dick Cheney and his family was marred by
protesters accusing him of war crimes and torture. One protester tried to
‘arrest’ the politician, but was taken away, as live video of the event went
black.
The event at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel was attended by protesters
blaming Cheney for controversial policies of the Bush administration, including
the invasion of Iraq and approval of waterboarding of terrorism suspects.
One of them, a woman wearing a pink sign and carrying handcuffs
interrupted the interview at one point.
“Dick Cheney should be arrested for war crimes!” one protester screamed before being escorted out.“You destroyed
Iraq, DC! You destroyed Iraq!”
The outburst caused Lynne Cheney to chuckle while Liz started
chanting: “Four more years! Four more years!”
C-SPAN’s live stream of the event went black seconds after the camera
pointed at the protester as she was escorted out.
“And we are having some problems with the feed coming to us from the
Politico Playbook lunch,” a C-SPAN
announcer eventually explained.
The Cheneys’ interview focused on attacking the Obama administration
policies and defending those of the Bush administration.
“I believed in it then. I look back on it now, it was absolutely the
right thing to do,” the former VP
said with regard to the invasion of Iraq.
Critics of Cheney and the policies of the administration he served
accuse him of masterminding the Iraqi invasion on a false pretext. The
invasions and subsequent occupation claimed 500,000 lives of Iraqis and 4,500
of American troops and cost billions of dollars.
‘Enhanced interrogation techniques’ were used by the US against
terrorism suspects in their custody. The practice amounting to torture was
widely condemned by human rights groups and has since been abandoned.
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