"I was just following orders."

The New York Times reported yesterday:

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

What is strange about this is that the Vice-President has no executive authority under the Constitution or any federal legislation I know about.  Just goes to show further what a puppet George W. Bush was.  Anyone at the CIA who takes "orders" from any Vice-President ought to be fired and -- if the ordered action or inaction is illegal -- prosecuted.  "I was just following orders" is no defense if the orders are illegal. Here's an interesting paper (.pdf) on that topic published in the Military Review by one of the U.S. Army's top lawyer-officers.  Wikipedia also has an article on the Nuremberg Defense.