The House Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday in a voice vote to compel Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington to testify on his role in approving harsh interrogation techniques for enemy combatants in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The vote empowered the committee’s chairman John Conyers (D-MI) to subpoena Addington at his discretion.

“This subpoena should not be controversial – as an institutional matter, all members should support our effort to learn the facts and to exercise responsible oversight in this area,” Conyers said in a written statement Tuesday.

“Furthermore, the proposed subpoena to Vice President Cheney’s aide David Addington is being considered at the express request of the Counsel to the Vice President,” he continued. “In view of the many reports that Mr. Addington played a key role in shaping interrogation policy, and in drafting legal memos on this subject, it is very important that we hear from him. I urge all members to support this authorization, which again the Counsel to the Vice President has stated would be accepted ‘as a matter of comity.’”

Cheney’s legal adviser Kathryn Wheelbarger said in a May 1 letter to the Judiciary Committee that Addington would be willing to testify as long as the committee limits its questions to his “personal knowledge of key historical facts” and avoids questions about the advice the Vice President gave the President, due to it being covered by a claim of privilege.

This comes on the heels of John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer, current law professor at University of California-Berkeley, written memo allowing harsh interrogations of military prisoners. Yoo’s March 14, 2003 memo outlines the legal justification to use harsh tactics against Al Queda detainees as long as the intent was information gathering, rather than torture.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and former Assistant Attorney General Dan Levin also have told the House committee that they would be willing to testify. Former CIA Director George Tenet is also in negotiations to testify before the committee.