Students walk out on 'war criminal' Dick Cheney during American University speech

More than two dozen students walked out on former Vice President Dick Cheney last week during a speech at American University.

Some of the students called Cheney a “war criminal” Thursday as they filed out of the auditorium.

“Walk out on war criminals,” one student can be heard yelling on video recorded during the event.

The former vice president denied to The Eagle student newspaper that the Bush administration in which he served had used torture, although he conceded that three individuals were subjected to waterboarding.

“Some people called it torture,” Cheney said. “It wasn’t torture.”

Human rights groups say the practice was much more widespread, however.

Cheney said the enhanced interrogation tactics implemented by the Bush administration did not fall under the scope of the 1949 United Nations Geneva Convention because those rules do not apply to unlawful combatants.

“If I would have to do it all over again, I would,” Cheney said. “The results speak for themselves.”

The Associated Press reported Monday that a disputed Senate torture report found that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods yielded no important evidence during the hunt for Osama bin Laden, although the CIA disputes the conclusion.

Cheney and former President George W. Bush have each canceled events in Canada after protests by human rights groups who accused the pair of war crimes, and Bush also canceled a speaking engagement in Switzerland over similar concerns.

Watch students walk out on Cheney in this video posted online by News2Share:

Watch this interview with Cheney posted online by ATV: