Cheney Boasts on National TV that He Committed War Crimes

This is clearly collusion between the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility and the White House. Dubya's group has always stated that the legal opinions behind torturing detainees were developed without input from the Bush 43 administration. Turns out that is just another lie.

The article "Cheney Exposes Torture Conspiracy" at

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/021410.html

reiterated Cheney's well known stance of being, as the article states "a big supporter of waterboarding."

Cheney, as the article notes, divulged that "Speaking with a sense of impunity, he casually negated a key line of defense that senior Bush officials had hidden behind for years - that the brutal interrogations were approved by independent Justice Department legal experts who thus gave the administration a legitimate reason to believe the actions were within the law.
However, on Sunday, Cheney acknowledged that the White House had told the Justice Department lawyers what legal opinions to render. In other words, the opinions amounted to ordered-up lawyering to permit the administration to do whatever it wanted....
In 2002, Yoo - while working closely with White House officials - drafted legal memos that permitted waterboarding and other brutal techniques by narrowly defining torture. He also authored legal opinions that asserted virtual dictatorial powers for a President during war, even one as vaguely defined as the "war on terror." Yoo's key memos were then signed by Bybee."

The article continues "Though Bush administration defenders have long denied that the legal opinions were cooked, the evidence has long supported the conspiratorial interpretation. For instance, in his 2006 book War by Other Means, Yoo himself described his involvement in frequent White House meetings regarding what "other means" should receive a legal stamp of approval. Yoo wrote:
"As the White House held its procession of Christmas parties and receptions in December 2001, senior lawyers from the Attorney General's office, the White House counsel's office, the Departments of State and Defense and the NSC [National Security Council] met a few floors away to discuss the work on our opinion. ...
"This group of lawyers would meet repeatedly over the next months to develop policy on the war on terrorism."
Yoo said meetings were usually chaired by Alberto Gonzales, who was then White House counsel and later became Bush's second Attorney General. Yoo identified other key players as Timothy Flanigan, Gonzales's deputy; William Howard Taft IV from State; John Bellinger from the NSC; William "Jim" Haynes from the Pentagon; and David Addington, counsel to Cheney."

Cheney-- through Addington told Yoo what he wanted his legal analysis to be. Yoo decided to go along with the bizarre idea that Dubya's unitary executive powers gave him a free pass to commit war crimes. As the article states "If the United States had a functioning criminal justice system for the powerful - not just for run-of-the-mill offenders - former Vice President Dick Cheney would have convicted himself and some of his Bush administration colleagues with his comments on ABC's "This Week."

They commit war crimes and Cheney boasts of them and nothing happens. Yoo in his 2006 book provides us with written documentation of how Cheney's legal counsel (2001-2005) and chief of staff (2005-2009), David Addington worked with Yoo to formulate his legal rationale for committing war crimes. Where is the outrage?