Condoleezza Rice veterans, intelligence officials, military judges, human rights organizations, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and many senior politicians, including U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2003 Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft met with the CIA again and were briefed on the use of waterboarding and other methods including week-long sleep deprivation, forced nudity and the use of stress positions. The Senate report says that the Bush administration officials "reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy". The Senate report also "suggests Miss Rice played a more significant role than she acknowledged in written testimony
Dick Cheney offer, he passed a painting in the private residence entitled "The Peacemakers," which depicted President Lincoln, General Grant, and William Tecumseh Sherman. "My great-grandfather had served under William Tecumseh Sherman throughout the war," Cheney said, "and it occurred to me as I was in the room as I walked in to talk to the President about becoming Secretary of Defense, I wondered what he would have thought that his great-grandson would someday be in the White House with the President talking about taking over the reins of the U.S. military." Cheney worked closely with Pete Williams, Assistant Secretary of Defense