Cheney doesn't back down on Guantanamo, interrogation

President-elect Barack Obama vows to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay for terrorism suspects.

But if Vice President Dick Cheney had his way, it would stay open indefinitely, until "the end of the war on terror."

In an interview airing this evening on ABC News, Cheney is asked when that will be. "Well, nobody knows. Nobody can specify that. Now, in previous wars, we've always exercised the right to capture the enemy and then hold them till the end of the conflict. That's what we did in World War II with, you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of German prisoners," he replied, according to excerpts released by ABC.

"The same basic principle ought to apply here in terms of our right to capture the enemy and hold them. As I say, the other option is to turn them over to somebody else. A lot of them, nobody wants. I mean, there's a great resistance sometimes in the home countries to taking these people back into their own territory."

Cheney is similarly unapologetic and steadfast on the interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, used on terrorism suspects including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the so-called mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, who said last week he wants to plead guilty, ostensibly to become a martyr.

Asked about the interrogation program, Cheney says, "I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

Cheney also said he disagreed with Bush strategist Karl Rove, who said last week that if the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction had been correct, the Iraq war probably would not have happened. "I think -- as I look at the intelligence with respect to Iraq, what they got wrong was that there weren't any stockpiles. What we found in the after action reports, after the intelligence report was done and then various special groups went and looked at the intelligence and what its validity was. What they found was that Saddam Hussein still had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. He had the technology, he had the people, he had the basic feed stocks," Cheney said.

"They also found that he had every intention of resuming production once the international sanctions were lifted. He had a long reputation and record of having started two wars. Of having brutalized and killed hundreds of thousands of people, some of them with weapons of mass destruction in his own country. He had violated 16 National Security Council resolutions. He had established a relationship as a terror sponsoring state according to the State Department. He was making $25,000 payments to the families of suicide bombers," Cheney added. "This was a bad actor and the country's better off, the world's better off, with Saddam gone and I think we made the right decision in spite of the fact that the original NIE was off in some of its major judgments."