Cheney: CIA torture probe 'political'

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney says probes of harsh interrogations of terrorism detainees are politically motivated.

Referring to the appointment of a special prosecutor by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a preliminary inquiry to investigate whether CIA treatment of the detainees amounted to illegal torture, Cheney told "Fox News Sunday" the move is based on politics and will damage U.S. morale.

Asserting that interrogators during the Bush administration had "specific legal authority from the Justice Department" to carry out harsh questioning, Cheney said of Holder's move, "It's clearly a political move. I mean, there's no other rationale for why they're doing this."

Cheney said the current Justice Department's actions will deter American efforts to fight terrorism and invite further attacks.

"If (CIA interrogators) now going to be subject to being investigated and prosecuted by the next administration, nobody's going to sign up for those kinds of missions," he said. "It's a very, very devastating, I think, effect that it has on morale inside the intelligence community."