In a speech at the Manhattan Institute today, Vice President Dick Cheney charged that withdrawing troops from Iraq would create a “massive setback.” During his comments, Cheney also “used words like ‘betrayal‘” to describe what he sees as the consequences of withdrawal:

Failure in Iraq would also tell America’s friends that we cannot be counted on. We have to remember that in the broader Middle East, untold numbers of people have made a stand for freedom because the United States has led the fight. In Iraq, you’ve got the elected officials, hundreds of thousands of people in the security services, all of the millions of citizens who defied killers to go to the polls and choose their own leaders. It would be the gravest wrong to turn our backs on them and leave them to their fate.

And the impact of any such betrayal would be felt far beyond the borders of Iraq.

Watch a NY1 report on Cheney’s speech:

For such a nice country, Italy’s politics seem weirdly screwed up. There’s the famous instability of the governments, of course. And then there’s the fact that their main right-of-center party is led by the legendarily corrupt Silvio Berlusconi. And then there’s the fact that despite the broadly discreditable nature of Berlusconi, the left-of-center bloc can never seem to stop him from coming back to power.

And then there’s the Northern League — a blend of a separatist party with a far-right party that made substantial gains in the recent election and will be a junior partner in the new Berlusconi-led coalition. Henry Farrell says “US readers who aren’t familiar with European politics should try to imagine a political party with a program co-written by Mark Steyn, David Duke and Tom Tancredo, and they’ll be at least half-way there.” Joshua Keating notes that “The League’s control of the Interior Ministry puts Italy’s immigration policy is in the hands of a party whose leaders have suggested that the navy fire on rafts carrying illegal immigrants.”

Last month, ABC News revealed that President Bush’s most senior advisers approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics. Days later, Bush confirmed to ABC he “approved” of the tactics.

In a forthcoming book, British international law professor Philippe Sands further documents how the most extreme interrogation techniques — including stress, hooding, noise, nudity, and “dogs” — came directly from the White House and Pentagon.

Sands reveals that Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s lawyer Jim Haynes traveled to Guantanamo in 2002, witnessed an interrogation, and sent approval back to Washington. The “driving individual was Mr. Addington, who was obviously the man in control,” Sands said:

There was an extraordinary meeting held in September 2002, just before the techniques were to go up the chain of command, so to speak. [Gonzales, Addington, and Haynes] descended on Guantanamo, met with the combatant commander there Mike Dunlavey, watched some interrogations, and as I was told by Dunlavey and by his lawyer Diane Beaver, basically sent out the signal ‘do whatever needs to be done.’

Listen to the interview:

Sands also explained how Gen. Richard Myers, then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, was cut out of the loop by Rumsfeld. Myers did not know the administration ditched the Geneva Conventions and made use of techniques prohibited by the Army Field Manual.

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, explained the implications of these revelations:

Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzalez and — at the apex — Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court.

Sands also notes that the interrogation records of al Qaeda suspect Mohammed al-Qahtani — the subject of the 2002 meeting at Guantanamo with Gonzales, Addington, and Haynes — were “mysteriously lost.” Cameras that “run 24 hours a day at the prison were set to automatically record over their contents, the US military admitted in court papers.”

Beaver added that the TV show 24, specifically Jack Bauer “gave people lots of ideas.” “We saw [24] on cable. … It was hugely popular.” “She believed the series contributed to an environment in which those at Guantánamo were encouraged to see themselves as being on the frontline – and to go further than they otherwise might,” Sands writes.

Read Ron Brownstein on Obama and Clinton waging the first 21st century campaign. I would only add that the “first” business is a bit of a journalistic conceit, Clinton and (even more so) Obama are improving on many models and ideas that Howard Dean used in 2004 and were even to some extent present in the McCain 2000 campaign.

CNN has announced that beginning today, former White House press secretary Tony Snow will be joining the network as a “conservative commentator.” CNN president Jon Klein explains the decision:

In the White House, Tony brought a remarkably human touch to the discussion of public policy, which he will continue to do as part of the Best Political Team on Television. He will contribute a unique breadth of political and journalistic expertise to what is already the most provocative and wide-ranging political analysis on the air.

In October, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly warned Snow against joining CNN: “I mean, that’s the devil over there. … You can’t go into the pagan throne over there.” He added that if CNN put Snow on the 8 pm slot as a competitor to him, “it’s going to get bloody.” Watch it:

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Alphonso Jackson resigned as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under a cloud of ethics allegations and investigations. Despite his disastrous record, TPMmuckraker reports that Jackson received a royal farewell party, including a program with four images of Jackson on the cover:

The event, which was held in the main auditorium at HUD, included an overflow crowd of about 1,000 HUD employees, said HUD spokesman Jerry Brown. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the special guest speaker at the event, Brown said.

Despite the regal appearance of the program, Brown said that the event mainly involved “a slide show and a person who sang the national anthem.”

This may have been Jackson’s last homage to himself at HUD. The giant photo exhibitions of Jackson are being removed from HUD’s lobbies, and the oil portrait Jackson commissioned of himself is still in the agency’s basement.