Former Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday if he were in a position to decide, he would have enhanced interrogation programs "active" and "ready to go."
"If it were my call, I would not discontinue those programs. I'd have them active and ready to g,o and I would go back and study them and learn," the former vice president told Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo. "The agency is in a difficult position. Congress has acted. They have changed the law, and the agency has to and will operate by a statue."
President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel, is facing opposition from Democrats because of her involvement with the CIA's controversial interrogation program during the early 2000s after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Cheney continues to support the Bush administration's actions in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"I have been very vocal about it. I believed in it. I was heavily involved in getting it set up and getting the opinion out of Justice Department on how far we could go. I am not one of those people who calls it torture. An awful lot of people do. But it wasn't," Cheney said. "It was set up in a way that what we did was in fact consistent with our fundamental statutes and agreements that were in place. And it worked. "
Cheney added how only three detainees were waterboarded, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Cheney was adamant that through the CIA's interrogation techniques, the U.S. was able to gain valuable intelligence that prevented another mass casualty attack on U.S. soil.
"There's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks in the terrorism business ... I think the techniques used were not torture. A lot of people try to call it that, but it wasn't deemed torture at the time. The techniques we used are techniques we used on our own people in training," he said.
Cheney said he would do it all over again.
"Now people want to go back and try to rewrite history, but if it were my call, I would do it again," he said.