This Era's 'Hiroshima', Ctd

AP's Ron Fournier writes the following in the Washington Post:

On the Daily Kos Web site, one blogger noted the standing ovation given to "the self-confessed war criminal Dick Cheney." Whatever one might think of Cheney's interrogation policies, the former vice president has never been charged with a war crime, much less confessed to one.

Fournier is right that actual charges have not yet been filed in Cheney's case - although they were in the case of the "Bush Six" - Gonzales, Yoo, Feith, Bybee, Haynes and Addington. Because all these men were acting directly under Cheney's orders, it is only a matter of time, especially after the OPR report, that charges will be filed against Cheney. And a judicial investigation into Cheney's war crimes has been opened by the same judge who charged Pinochet with war crimes:

Judge Baltasar Garzon will probe the "perpetrators, the instigators, the necessary collaborators and accomplices" to crimes of torture... Garzon said that documents declassified by the US administration and carried by US media "have revealed what was previously a suspicion: the existence of an authorised and systematic programme of torture and mistreatment of persons deprived of their freedom" that flouts international conventions.

This points to "the possible existence of concerted actions by the US administration for the execution of a multitude of crimes of torture against persons deprived of their freedom in Guantanamo and other prisons including that of Bagram" in Afghanistan.

Who were the specific targets of that probe?

According to [Philippe Sands'] sources the targets of this investigation include Condoleeza Rice and Richard B. Cheney. What is likely to happen next is for the investigation to proceed; if unappealed, a court date will be set, and the targets will be advised to appear. Garz may then issue an arrest warrant that will be valid, at least in Spain, but possibly other countries.

As to being a "self-confessed" war criminal, Fournier is simply wrong, On two specific occasions, under the artful questioning of Jon Karl of ABC News, Cheney has indicated he supported waterboarding, which is a war crime according to every single instance in international and domestic law, the Geneva Conventions and the Reagan-signed UN Convention against Torture.