Bush & Rumsfeld could be indicted

10/30/2005 3:00:00 PM GMT

In a letter sent to George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq, a group of 100 American law professors opposing Iraq war warned the U.S. President that he as well as senior officials at his government could be prosecuted for war crimes if any violation of international humanitarian law happened.

The group demanded warring parties to distinguish between military and civilian areas, only use the level of force that militarily necessary and only use weaponry proportionate to what is being targeted.

"Our primary concern ... is the large number of civilian casualties that may result should U.S. and ‘coalition’ forces fail to comply with international humanitarian law in using force against Iraq," the group, led by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote in the letter that was also addressing the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Reuters reported in January 2003.

Ironically, at that time President Bush asked the Iraqi officers and soldiers to disobey any orders to use weapons of mass destruction in the event of a conflict. "If you choose to do so, when Iraq is liberated, you will be treated, tried and persecuted as a war criminal," he said.

According to the War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal statute set forth at 18 U.S.C. § 2441, any violation of the Geneva Convention by engaging in murder, torture, or inhuman treatment, is federal crime, and this for any U.S. national, military or civilian, said an editorial published on globalResearch.

This law is not only applicable to those who carry out such crimes, but to those who order them, know about them, or fail to prevent them from taking place, and this includes both low and senior ranking officials.

The law, moreover, has no statute of limitations, and thus a war crimes complaint can be filed at any time.

Several reports released over the past year and declassified documents listed numerous cases where detainees held at Abu Ghraib jail near the Iraqi capital and in U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan died as a result of being tortured by the American soldiers. And since this law stipulates that if a prisoner died as a result of torture the penalty could be death sentence, then death penalty should be appropriate for anyone found guilty of carrying out, ordering, or sanctioning any of the acts that have been carried out in Abu Ghraib or Afghanistan.

Last week, the general in charge of Abu Ghraib prison stated that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other senior ranking administration officials ordered that inhuman treatment and torture as part of a deliberate strategy.

It's been revealed that today, more than a year after Abu Ghraib scandal broke out and inhumane and brutal interrogation methods used against the Iraqi detainees at the notorious prison were uncovered, torture continues at that prison and, more people are still being tortured by the U.S. military personnel worldwide. It seems that Bush’s administration is not even considering or intending to stop those tactics, instead it is trying to found a way that legalizes them or makes them easier.

In January 2002, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo to President Bush saying that America needs to find a way to sidestep the Geneva Convention as it puts top officials in a serious situation; bearing in mind prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 2441. And thus Gonzales prepared a document trail that can be used to prove that “top administration officials knowingly created a policy of torturing prisoners, and that such a policy could reasonably have been expected to result in the death of some prisoners,” according to GlobalResearch.

Recent statement by Abu Ghraib general accusing top officials of involvement in the crimes that were carried out at the jail is a key evidence for convicting Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, as well as other administration officials for violation of the War Crimes Act of 1996. And if successfully convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison, or even death.

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