Did Vice President Cheney admit to a war crime?

A few days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Rev. Nathan Baxter, then Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, cautioned Americans against "becom[ing] the evil that we deplore."

I think of that as I ponder Vice President Dick Cheney's blithe acknowledgement that he helped obtain approval for interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects that have been widely condemned as torture. This includes Waterboarding. or simulated drowning -- Cheney acknowledged that in 2007 that the tactic had been used against Khalid Sheik Mohammed, according to CBS News. In a Dec. 16 interview with ABC News' Jonathan Karl, Cheney denied charges that US counterterrorism tactics had "gone too far" or violated human rights. And in an interview today with FOX news, Cheney insisted the tactics were constitutional and had saved American lives:

I think you can have a robust interrogation program with respect to high-value detainees. Now, those are all steps we took that I believe the president was fully authorized in taking and provided invaluable intelligence which has been the key to our ability to defeat Al Qaida over these last seven years.

While Cheney insists that the Bush administration did nothing improper, the Senate Armed Services Committee, under the leadership of Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-Ariz) released a report condemning those very tactics. Here's former GOP presidential nominee McCain:

“The Committee’s report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody. These policies are wrong and must never be repeated.”

The question is, do these acts constitute crimes? If so, what should be done about it? And if we do nothing, what does it say about us?

Human Rights Watch has been calling for prosecutions ever since CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden admitted that agency's use of waterboarding in Febrary of this year:

“General Hayden’s acknowledgment that the CIA subjected three detainees to waterboarding is an explicit admission of criminal activity,” said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. “Those who authorized these crimes have to be held accountable.”Waterboarding has been prosecuted by US courts as torture since the Spanish-American War. After World War II, US military commissions prosecuted and severely punished enemy soldiers for subjecting American prisoners to waterboarding.“General Hayden’s testimony gives the lie to all of the administration’s past protestions that the CIA has not employed torture,” Mariner said. “Waterboarding is torture, and torture is a crime.”

In the wake of the latest revelations, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan likened Cheney's justifications for the administration's policies to those employed by notorious Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. According to Sullivan, holding Cheney to account is a matter of vital national interest:

[W]hat we know with real clarity is the following: the vice-president long ago became an enemy to the Constitution and to all it represents. He should have been impeached long ago; and the shamelessness of his exit makes prosecution all the more vital. If we let this would-be dictator do what he has done to the constitution and get away with it, the damage to the American idea is deep and permanent.

Earlier this week, Levin told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that he intends to turn over the evidence assembled by the Armed Services Committee to the Obama Justice department, with the expectation that it will be pursued. And as Firedoglake's looseheadprop notes, Levin criticized Cheney's stance in no uncertain terms:

You can’t just suddenly change some thing that’s illegal into something that is legal by having a lawyer writing an opinion saying that it’s legal. Things can’t work that way or else someone could get a lawyer and say a crime is not a crime and then that would be a defense. It is not a defense. And I was astounded frankly, when I heard the Vice President of the United States sort of just blandly and blindly saying that he thought that was appropriate thing and yes he was involved in discussions about it.

According to looseheadprop, Levin's sharp statement "gives me hope for the future."

Writing for The Nation, Jeremey Brecher and Brendan Smith says it's an open question whether the Obama administration will pursue the issue. On the one hand, candidate Barack Obama said that he would support an investigation and prosecution if crimes were uncovered. On the other hand, since Obama plans to retain several members of the Bush administration's defense and intelligence establishment who might have a conflict of interest in any investigation. But then there's the matter of Constitutional duty:

If the Obama administration continues the Bush administration's efforts to prevent investigators from investigating and courts from hearing such cases, it will rapidly become part of the cover-up. If it begins to, at a minimum, stop obstructing such proceedings, the result could be a rapid crumbling of the wall of silence the Bush administration has tried so assiduously to build around its "war on terror."

The Nation article notes that legal experts are exploring a variety of ways in which an accounting might proceed. One alternative being discussed is something like the 9/11 Commission.

Jane Mayer, whose book,The Dark Side, offers extensive documentation of the Bush administration's alleged wartime excesses, told Harper's magazine last July that she didn't think there would be the political will for an aggressive inquiry:

I may be wrong, but I personally doubt there will be large-scale legal repercussions inside America for those who devised and implemented “The Program.” Activists will be angry at me for saying this, but as someone who has covered politics in Washington, D.C., for two decades, I would be surprised if there is the political appetite for going after public servants who convinced themselves that they were acting in the best interests of the country, and had legal authority to do so. An additional complicating factor is that key members of Congress sanctioned this program, so many of those who might ordinarily be counted on to lead the charge are themselves compromised.

But Salon's Glenn Greenwald thinks the momentum has swung in favor the accountability movement of late:

The mountain of conclusive evidence that has recently emerged directly linking top Bush officials to the worst abuses -- combined with Dick Cheney's brazen, defiant acknowledgment of his role in these crimes (which perfectly tracked Bush's equally defiant 2005 acknowledgment of his illegal eavesdropping programs and his brazen vow to continue them) -- is forcing even the reluctant among us to embrace the necessity of such accountability.

BlogHer community member Pretty Lady thinks that the failure to prosecute senior officials in this matter undermines the legitimacy of the whole legal system:

It is incredible to me, how many Americans seem unable to free themselves of knee-jerk deference to authority, sufficiently to hold the President and Vice-President accountable for war crimes.

What do you think? With all of the serious issues confronting the incoming Obama administration, should an aggressive investigation of these matters be a priority? And what will it mean for our democracy if it is not?