Is Dick Cheney a War Criminal?
Former U.S. Vice President Faces Allegations over Torture
Oct 2, 2009
On September 20, 2009, BBC News reported that “President Obama has rejected a request by seven former heads of the Central Intelligence Agency to end the inquiry into allegations of abuse of suspects held by the agency.”
Obama said on the CBS television program Face the Nation that, “Nobody’s above the law.”
Torture of Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
During George W. Bush’s so-called War on Terror, several hundred suspected terrorists were captured and held in a prison at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
To circumvent Geneva Convention protections accorded to prisoners of war, the Bush administration insisted the people they captured and held were not legitimate military personnel, but rather “enemy combatants.” By using this description the claim was made that the prisoners fell outside the coverage of international legal instruments requiring that prisoners of war be treated humanely.
Under cover of this semantic fig-leaf, the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were routinely subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” (read torture) to extract information from them.
Is Enhanced Interrogation Torture?
One of the techniques favoured by CIA operatives was waterboarding.
Waterboarding was described by ABC News (November 18, 2005): “The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised, and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.”
ABC News quoted John Sifton of Human Rights Watch as saying that waterboarding makes the person believe “they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law.”
The BBC’s Panorama program Licence to Torture (July 13, 2009) sums up the defence offered by the Bush administration. “America’s leaders say they only authorized the controversial techniques because their lawyers advised that they did not constitute torture.”
Where Did the Orders for Torture Come from?
Aside from the questionable morality of even allowing torture to take place, it is illegal under American law, never mind international covenants.
Helen Thomas, the dean of the Washington press corps, thinks she knows who ordered the torture of prisoners. Writing for Hearst Newspapers (September 2, 2009), Thomas says, “It’s fair speculation that the orders for this method of torture came from on high. And in the Bush-Cheney administration, no one was higher than the vice president.”
No Attacks since 9/11
Dick Cheney has become a vigorous defender of the actions taken by the Bush administration, and according to The Christian Science Monitor (August 31, 2009), “he may not cooperate with” Attorney General Eric Holder’s investigation into CIA torture.
During an interview with Fox News (August 30, 2009), Cheney said there was no point talking to inquiry staff: “I’m very proud of what we did in terms of defending the nation for the past eight years, successfully,” Cheney said in the recorded interview. “And it won’t take a prosecutor to find out what I think. I’ve already expressed those views.”
Helen Thomas says it’s unlikely either Bush or Cheney will suffer penalties over their actions, “only lower ranking folks will catch flak,” she writes.
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