| | Petraeus denies systematic torture during Bush years
 The U.S. military did not order torture while George W. Bush was president, U.S. Army General David Petraeus said Sunday.
Petraeus, who commanded the multinational forces in Iraq until he took over U.S. Central Command last year, said the military "certainly did not" order anything that he thought was wrong or immoral – like torture.
"Now, there were incidents that did [cross the line into torture] and we learned hard lessons from Abu Ghraib and we believe we took corrective measures in the wake of that," Petraeus told CNN's John King Sunday. "We think in the military, in particular, that that's a line that can't be crossed.
"If one violates the values we hold so dear, we jeopardize [our troops]," he said, noting that he put out a memorandum to the forces in Iraq while commander there out of concern that soldiers may not be taking these values seriously enough.
Petraeus disagreed with former Vice President Cheney's remarks two weeks ago that President Obama's policies have made America less safe.
"I wouldn't necessarily agree with that," said Petraeus, who has served under both administrations.
Last Sunday, President Obama fired back at Cheney, saying the ex-vice president's line of thought "has done incredible damage to our image and position in the world."
"I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney," Obama said on 60 Minutes. "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."
Petraeus didn't rebuke Cheney's comments quite so sternly.
This video is from CNN's State of the Union, broadcast March 29, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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