Cheney vs. Obama

By Robert Farley, Catharine Richert
Published on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 7:02 p.m.

Related rulings:

"You've heard endlessly about waterboarding. It happened to three terrorists."

Dick Cheney, Thursday, May 21st, 2009.

Ruling: True | Details

"Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal 'supermax' prisons."

Barack Obama, Thursday, May 21st, 2009.

Ruling: True | Details

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In his latest attack on President Obama, the former vice president said Obama doesn't "want ... to admit we're at war."

It was a debate in slow motion, with the participants a mile apart. (Or many miles apart, if you're talking metaphorically.)

In one corner, at the National Archives, was President Barack Obama, who defended his plan to close the camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said U.S. prisons can safely house the detainees.

In the other corner, at the downtown office of a conservative think tank, was former Vice President Dick Cheney, who defended Gitmo and methods such as waterboarding that were used to interrogate suspected terrorists.

We checked two of their facts and found they both were right.

Obama, to illustrate that the detainees could be kept in the United States, claimed that "nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal 'supermax' prisons." We ruled that one a True .

Cheney claimed that waterboarding had only been used on three different people. We checked the congressional testimony and confirmed it with a human rights advocate and also gave that one a True .