Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Vice President Cheney vigorously defended the Bush administration’s torture policies and his belief that by rejecting them, President Obama is raising “the risk to the American people of another attack.” Cheney said that the Bush administration’s interrogation policies will one day be viewed as “one of the great success stories of American intelligence.”

When host Bob Schieffer asked Cheney whether he would be willing to testify to Congress under oath, Cheney initially hedged, but then indicated that he would be willing to do so:

SCHIEFFER: Would you go back and talk to the Congress?

CHENEY: Certainly. I’ve made it very clear that I feel very strongly that what we did here was exactly the right thing to do. And if I don’t speak out, then where do we find ourselves, Bob? Then the critics have free run, and there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth. So it’s important — it’s important that we…

SCHIEFFER: Senator Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was on this broadcast recently. And I said, do you intend to ask the former vice president to come up? And he said if he will testify under oath. Would you be willing to testify under oath?

CHENEY: I’d have to see what the circumstances are and what kind of precedent we were setting. But certainly I wouldn’t be out here today if I didn’t feel comfortable talking about what we’re doing publicly.

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This past week, Cheney tried to portray himself as a type of populist with a responsibility to defend powerless intelligence officials. “I went through the Iran-contra hearings and watched the way administration officials ran for cover and left the little guys out to dry. And I was bound and determined that wasn’t going to happen this time,” he said. Of course, the Bush officials actually implicated in approving torture — David Addington, Jay Bybee, and Alberto Gonzales — were hardly “little.”

Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer has also been a vocal defender of the Bush administration’s policies in recent days, saying, “I’ll be proud to testify if I get a subpoena. I’m proud of what we did to protect this country.”

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In January, Sandy Tsao, an army officer, told her superiors that she is gay — a violation of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) law. On May 5, Tsao received a handwritten letter from President Obama stating that he is “committed to changing our current policy,” but that “it will take some time to complete (partly because it needs Congressional action).”

Today, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) about his views on DADT. McCain did not commit to changing the policy, saying, “in all due respect, right now the military is functioning extremely well” without openly-gay service members. McCain concluded that the policy “is working well”:

McCAIN: But in all due respect, right now the military is functioning extremely well in very difficult conditions. We have to have an assessment on recruitment, on retention and all the other aspects of the impact on our military if we change the policy. In my view, and I know that a lot of people don’t agree with that, the policy has been working and I think it’s been working well.

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McCain’s statement defending the efficacy of DADT comes in the wake of news that the military is about to discharge Dan Choi — a gay Arabic speaker –- simply for being openly gay. Choi’s dismissal is “the first known case” of a “mission-critical specialist” being discharged under DADT by the Obama administration. Last week, Choi told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow why the policy is problematic:

CHOI: But the biggest thing that I’m angry about is what it says about my unit. It says that my unit suffered negative good order — negative actions — good order and discipline suffered. That’s a big insult to my unit. I mean, all the insult that the letter can do, to say that I’m worthy of being fired, you know, that’s nothing comparing to saying that my unit is not professional enough, that my unit does not deserve to have a leader that is willing to deploy, that has skills to contribute.

Choi isn’t alone. Since 1994, DADT has resulted in the discharge of more than 13,000 military personnel across the services, including approximately 800 with skills deemed “mission critical,” such as pilots, combat engineers, and linguists. According to a 2005 report from the Government Accountability Office, “the cost of discharging and replacing service members fired because of their sexual orientation during the policy’s first 10 years totaled at least $190.5 million — roughly $20,000 per discharged service member.

It’s unclear how these facts led McCain to conclude that the policy is “working well.”