"His [Dick Cheney's] statements are those of a criminal that is trying to avoid responsibility for war crimes… Cheney is an extreme embarrassment to my country," McGovern told Sputnik.
On Sunday, Cheney stated that CIA officials, who were involved in torture, revealed by a recent US Senate report, should be praised and "deserve to be decorated," adding that the agency's interrogation techniques proved to be effective.
Former CIA analyst Raymond McGovern also touched upon the issue of the media coverage of the torture report, saying that "most of the people allowed to get on mainstream media have been those who are critical of the Senate report and not critical of the appalling things revealed there."
On December 9, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a summary report that included over 500 pages of a detailed investigation into interrogation techniques that were used by the CIA on alleged al-Qaeda agents, following the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York.
The report discloses techniques used against detainees such as waterboarding, forced nudity, threats of sexual assault, prolonged sleep deprivation, stress positions, mock executions and many other practices carried out in CIA "black sites" across the world.