Obama react : Cheney tactic 'hasn't made us safer'

US President Barack Obama react at former Vice President Dick Cheney's analysis of his policies on terrorism suspects, saying Cheney's approach had brought the United States scorn instead of security.

Obama told in "60 Minutes" program that the policy on detainees at Guantanamo Bay military prison under the management of former President George W. Bush had been "unsustainable".

"How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the attitude 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," Obama said, according to excerpts released by CBS on Saturday. The interview was to be broadcast on Sunday,Cheney recently told CNN television that Obama's revamped policies on terrorism suspects would make the US more susceptible to attack.

Obama started rolling back some of the Bush administration's national security policies. Obama ordered the closing of Guantanamo, Cuba, within a year, and an end to the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Obama said, however, that decisions that land on his desk are often a choice "between bad and worse." His hardest decision thus far, he told CBS, was sending an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan.

Earlier this week White House spokesman Robert Gibbs poured scorn on Cheney's comments about Obama's terrorism policies. Gibbs called the former vice president part of a "Republican cabal" along with conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Barack Obama and Indo-US relations

Barack Obama and Indo-US relations

The Indo-US relationship, which started gaining momentum under Bill Clinton and was accelerated by George Bush during his eight years of rule, is set to continue its upward trajectory under President Obama, a top American expert on South Asia said today. Observing that it is amazing to see how far the Indo-US relationship has come in the last one decade, Karl Inderfurth, former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia from 1997 to 2001, said before a Congressional panel that the remarkable transformation in relations started under Clinton Administration and was then accelerated by George W Bush.

"It is now set to continue its positive upward trajectory under President Obama," Inderfurth said before the House Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia, which had convened a hearing on building Indo-US relationship post Mumbai attack. "This transformation has been an excellent example of policy continuity and bipartisanship in US foreign policy," he said.

Moreover, each time the incumbent US president found a willing and able Indian Prime Minister to partner with in its truly joint endeavor from Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Manmohan Singh, he added.