“It’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal,” Cheney explained. In practice, this meant indefinitely detaining and forcefully interrogating suspected terrorists. Laws prohibited this—both international treaties outlawing torture and constitutional guarantees of the right of due process. Yet as the Bush administration discovered, those laws didn’t hold with the same force everywhere. The United States by law couldn’t torture. But it could transfer suspects to its allies for interrogation, even allies known for their loose adherence to international conventions.
