Cheney: Leave military options against Russia open

Former US Vice President Dick Cheney has criticized US President Barack Obama for not considering “military options” against Russia.

As tensions between Washington and Moscow continue to rise over the crisis in Ukraine, Cheney, who was one of the major architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday and said the US should not take “military options” against Russia off the table.

“I worry when we begin to address a crisis, the first thing we do is we take options off the table,” he said on the program. “I don’t think the administration should do that.”

He also urged the Obama administration to boost its missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.

“There are military options that don’t involve putting troops on the ground in Crimea. We can go back and reinstate the ballistic missile defense program that was taken out, originally going to go in Poland, Czech Republic,” he said.

Cheney has been accused of violating United Nations Convention Against Torture over his support for the CIA’s torture techniques, like water-boarding, as the US vice president under George W. Bush.

Cheney’s remarks come as 12 US F-16 fighter jets and 300 American troops are set to arrive in Poland this week in response to the crisis in Ukraine and a US Navy guided-missile destroyer has already entered the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, Robert Gates, who was the US Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011, urged his fellow Republicans on Sunday to tone down their criticism against Obama, saying he believes that Ukraine’s strategic peninsula of Crimea is gone and will not “slip out of Russia’s hand.”

This comes as Crimean MPs have voted to split from Ukraine and become part of Russia, calling a referendum on March 16 to validate their decision.

However, White House deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken has said that Washington will not recognize “the annexation of Crimea by Russia” even if residents of the autonomous region vote to separate from Ukraine in the planned referendum.