HOW CHENEY FOUGHT TO GIVE BUSH DICTATOR STATUS

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PBS - For three decades Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a
secretive, behind-closed-doors campaign to give the president virtually
unlimited wartime power. Finally, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Justice
Department and the White House made a number of controversial legal
decisions. Orchestrated by Cheney and his lawyer David Addington, the
department interpreted executive power in an expansive and extraordinary
way, granting President George W. Bush the power to detain, interrogate,
torture, wiretap and spy -- without congressional approval or judicial
review. . .

"The vice president believes that Congress has very few powers to
actually constrain the president and the executive branch," former
Justice Department attorney Marty Lederman tells Frontline. "He believes
the president should have the final word -- indeed the only word -- on
all matters within the executive branch."

After Sept. 11, Cheney and Addington were determined to implement their
vision -- in secret. The vice president and his counsel found an ally in
John Yoo, a lawyer at the Justice Department's extraordinarily powerful
Office of Legal Counsel. In concert with Addington, Yoo wrote memoranda
authorizing the president to act with unparalleled authority.

"Through interviews with key administration figures, Cheney's Law
documents the bruising bureaucratic battles between a group of
conservative Justice Department lawyers and the Office of the Vice
President over the legal foundation for the most closely guarded
programs in the war on terror," says Frontline producer Michael Kirk. .
.

In his most extensive television interview since leaving the Justice
Department, former Assistant Attorney General Jack L. Goldsmith
describes his initial days at the OLC in the fall of 2003 as he learned
about the government's most secret and controversial covert operations.
Goldsmith was shocked by the administration's secret assertion of
unlimited power.

"There were extravagant and unnecessary claims of presidential power
that were wildly overbroad to the tasks at hand," Goldsmith says. "I had
a whole flurry of emotions. My first one was disbelief that programs of
this importance could be supported by legal opinions that were this
flawed. My second was the realization that I would have a very, very
hard time standing by these opinions if pressed. My third was the
sinking feeling, what was I going to do if I was pressed about
reaffirming these opinions?"

As Goldsmith began to question his colleagues' claims that the
administration could ignore domestic laws and international treaties, he
began to clash with Cheney's office. According to Goldsmith, Addington
warned him, "If you rule that way, the blood of the 100,000 people who
die in the next attack will be on your hands."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cheney/etc/synopsis.html

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