"This is the same song and dance we've heard since literally the first day of our administration," spokesman Robert Gibbs said after Cheney blasted the investigation as politically driven and harmful to national security.

Gibbs said Cheney "clearly had his facts on a number of things wrong" and highlighted Republican Senator John McCain's denunciation of CIA use of interrogation techniques widely seen as torture.

"I would add this: I'm not entirely sure that Dick Cheney's predictions on foreign policy have borne a whole lot of fruit over the last eight years in a way that have been either positive or, to the best of my recollection, very correct," said the spokesman.

Cheney told Fox News Channel in an interview aired Sunday that the probe was an "outrageous political act" that would harm national security by making CIA agents fear possible legal reprisals.

Attorney General Eric Holder last week named a special investigator to determine whether a full criminal probe is needed into the actions of CIA interrogators of alleged terrorists.

The probe will cover CIA agents at overseas sites thought to have overstepped the limits laid out in Bush-era legal memoranda after the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes.

President Barack Obama has ruled out actions against Central Intelligence Agency officials who followed Bush-era interrogation guidelines in good faith.

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