He claims the CIA came to him for guidance on what tactics could be used. I am convinced the truth is even more sordid. Why would the CIA come to Richard Cheney if they wanted to know what tactics they could legally use?

In the first place, Cheney is not an attorney. He flunked out of Yale. He then got a a BA and MA in political science from the University of Wyoming. He failed to complete a Doctorate at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In the second place, the Vice-President is not in the chain-of-command for any government agency. His opinion would not hold any legal wight even if he was equipped give an opinion.

If the CIA, or any other Bush-Cheney agency, wanted to know what techniques they could use they would go to the attorneys in their own agency. The Counsel for the CIA would not want to make such a decision. The agency attorneys would then go to the Attorney General’s office for a ruling.

The Attorney General would pass the question on to the Office of Legal Counsel. The Legal Counsel would make a ruling. This would go back up the chain to the Attorney General (at the time, John Ashcroft). On such a sensitive issue the decision would then go to the White House.

At no time would the Vice-President be involved in such a decision as whether to use torture. I am convinced Dick Cheney went to the CIA, or sent one of his henchmen. He would have encouraged the CIA to use torture. OK, they would have called it enhanced interrogation. Do I believe President George W Bush was involved? Up to his eyeballs.

Cheney is trying to throw the burden of starting down the road to torture onto the CIA and the Department of Defense. Were the agencies responsible for what they did to prisoners? Yes, they were.

Dick Cheney and his ventriloquism puppet George W Bush have to be investigated for war crimes. However, it is probably going to be difficult to build a case starting from the top. The Bush administration has had eight years to hide their tracks. Start with the CIA and work up. The CIA agents and even the leadership is not going to want to be the fall guys. If a persistent prosecutor like Patrick Fitzgerald is appointed Special Prosecutor the underlings will turn state’s witness in a minute.

If the United States government is not willing to take war crimes to court then Bush, Cheney, George Tenet, and Donald Rumsfeld should be surrendered to the Hague International Court.