Could Dick Cheney Go to Prison?

By Ray McGovern, Consortium News. Posted July 18, 2009.

Here's what Cheney allowed himself to tell Face the Nation's Bob Schieffer on May 10 about "enhanced interrogation techniques":

Schieffer: How much did President Bush know specifically about the methods that were being used? We know that you -- and you have said -- that you approved this …

Cheney: Right.

Schieffer: … somewhere down the line. Did President Bush know everything you knew?

Cheney: I certainly, yes, have every reason to believe he knew -- he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it. I mean, this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.

Small wonder that Republicans are wincing, although the winces have been largely suppressed. The Washington Post reported recently that many Republicans now consider Cheney a major problem, but cannot say so. The Post quoted one Republican strategist on the Cheney dilemma:

"He continues to be a force among many members of our base, and while he is entirely unhelpful, no one has the standing to show him the door."

During a four-day visit to Dallas last week, I learned that Bush continues to be a lofty hero among many folks there -- with the notable exception of the hardy activists of the Dallas Peace Center and Code Pink.

Hefty donations keep pouring in for his library and institute, and any "mistakes" that may have been made during the Bush/Cheney administration are laid at the door of the former vice president.

Leading Republicans are passionate about this. And the phenomenon is not limited to Dallas. Cheney is smart enough to know that he too may soon be "sort of hanging in the wind," along with his former subordinate, Libby.

It's Also About "Fixing" Intelligence

Approval of torture, assassination, warrantless eavesdropping -- hey, there is quite enough to go on, and increasing signs that Cheney will be called on the carpet.

What we have been focusing on, however, glosses over Cheney's key role in purveying lies to get our representatives in Congress to approve a war that qualifies for what the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal called the "supreme international crime" -- a war of aggression.

We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity were on to Cheney very early. Six years ago today, we took the unusual step of sending a formal recommendation to President Bush that he "ask for Cheney's immediate resignation."

Our unprecedented appeal even caught the eye of the FCM, since our "Memorandum for the President" reviewed some of the deceit engineered by the vice president in conjuring up a rationale for war on Iraq and directing the cheerleading for it.

We noted that Cheney, skilled at pre-emption, had stolen a march on his vacationing colleagues by launching, in a major speech on Aug. 26, 2002, a meretricious campaign to persuade Congress and the American people that Iraq was about to acquire nuclear weapons.

That campaign mushroomed, literally, in early October, with Bush and senior advisers raising the specter of a "mushroom cloud" threatening our cities. On the inside of the synthetic clouds one could almost read the label -- "manufactured out of thin air in the Office of the Vice President."

In his memoir, the pitiable former CIA Director George Tenet complains that Cheney's assertion that Iraq would acquire nuclear weapons "fairly soon" did not square with the intelligence community's assessment.

Tenet adds, "I was surprised when I read about Cheney's assertion that, ‘Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.' "

Tenet whines that the vice president did not send him a copy of the speech for clearance. But the malleable CIA director quickly got over it, and told CIA analysts to compose the kind of National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that would provide ex post facto support for Cheney's bogus assertions. Just what Cheney (and Bush) ordered.

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Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

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