From Pres. Obama’s interview on “60 Minutes” last Sunday:

STEVE KROFT: A week ago Vice President Cheney said essentially that your willingness to shut down Guantanamo and to change the way prisoners are treated and interrogator — interrogated — was making America weaker and more vulnerable to another attack. And that — the interrogation techniques that were used at Guantanamo were essential in preventing another attack against the United States.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney. Not surprisingly. You know, I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can’t reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don’t torture, with our national security interests. I think he’s drawing the wrong lesson from history.

The facts don’t bear him out. I think he is — that attitude, that philosophy has done incredible damage — to our image and position in the world. I mean, the fact of the matter is after all these years how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many — how many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn’t made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment. Which means that there is constant effective recruitment of Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against U.S. interests all around the world.

STEVE KROFT:

Some of it being organized by a few people who were released from Guantanamo.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

Well there is no doubt that we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals that we’ve got to make sure are not a threat to us, who are folks that we just swept up. The whole premise of Guantanamo promoted by Vice President Cheney was that somehow the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists.

I fundamentally disagree with that. Now, do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block? Of course not.

STEVE KROFT:

What do you do with those people?

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

Well, I think we’re going to have to figure out a mechanism to make sure that they not released and do us harm. But– do so in a way that is consistent with both our traditions, sense of due process, international law. But this is — this is the legacy that’s been left behind. And, you know, I’m surprised that the Vice President is eager to defend a legacy that was unsustainable let’s assume that we didn’t change these practices. How — how long are we going to go? Are we going to just keep on going until, you know, the entire Muslim world and Arab world despises us? Do we think that’s really going to make us safer? I — I don’t know a lot of thoughtful thinkers, liberal or conservative, who think that that was the right approach.