Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse (BARF)

A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the former Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo

Just days after his resignation, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The plaintiffs in the case include 11 Iraqis who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as Mohammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi held at Guantanamo, whom the U.S. has identified as the so-called "20th hijacker" and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. As TIME first reported in June 2005, Qahtani underwent a "special interrogation plan," personally approved by Rumsfeld, which the U.S. says produced valuable intelligence. But to obtain it, according to the log of his interrogation and government reports, Qahtani was subjected to forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and other controversial interrogation techniques.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski — who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case — has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: "It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ."

A spokesperson for the Pentagon told TIME there would be no comment since the case has not yet been filed.

Along with Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Tenet, the other defendants in the case are Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone; former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee; former deputy assisant attorney general John Yoo; General Counsel for the Department of Defense William James Haynes II; and David S. Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Senior military officers named in the filing are General Ricardo Sanchez, the former top Army official in Iraq; Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of Guantanamo; senior Iraq commander, Major General Walter Wojdakowski; and Col. Thomas Pappas, the one-time head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib.

Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides "universal jurisdiction" allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world. Indeed, a similar, but narrower, legal action was brought in Germany in 2004, which also sought the prosecution of Rumsfeld. The case provoked an angry response from Pentagon, and Rumsfeld himself was reportedly upset. Rumsfeld's spokesman at the time, Lawrence DiRita, called the case a "a big, big problem." U.S. officials made clear the case could adversely impact U.S.-Germany relations, and Rumsfeld indicated he would not attend a major security conference in Munich, where he was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, unless Germany disposed of the case. The day before the conference, a German prosecutor announced he would not pursue the matter, saying there was no indication that U.S. authorities and courts would not deal with allegations in the complaint.

In bringing the new case, however, the plaintiffs argue that circumstances have changed in two important ways. Rumsfeld's resignation, they say, means that the former Defense Secretary will lose the legal immunity usually accorded high government officials. Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the German prosecutor's reasoning for rejecting the previous case — that U.S. authorities were dealing with the issue — has been proven wrong.

"The utter and complete failure of U.S. authorities to take any action to investigate high-level involvement in the torture program could not be clearer," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a U.S.-based non-profit helping to bring the legal action in Germany. He also notes that the Military Commissions Act, a law passed by Congress earlier this year, effectively blocks prosecution in the U.S. of those involved in detention and interrogation abuses of foreigners held abroad in American custody going to back to Sept. 11, 2001. As a result, Ratner contends, the legal arguments underlying the German prosecutor's previous inaction no longer hold up.

Whatever the legal merits of the case, it is the latest example of efforts in Western Europe by critics of U.S. tactics in the war on terror to call those involved to account in court. In Germany, investigations are under way in parliament concerning cooperation between the CIA and German intelligence on rendition — the kidnapping of suspected terrorists and their removal to third countries for interrogation. Other legal inquiries involving rendition are under way in both Italy and Spain.

U.S. officials have long feared that legal proceedings against "war criminals" could be used to settle political scores. In 1998, for example, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet — whose military coup was supported by the Nixon administration — was arrested in the U.K. and held for 16 months in an extradition battle led by a Spanish magistrate seeking to charge him with war crimes. He was ultimately released and returned to Chile. More recently, a Belgian court tried to bring charges against then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for alleged crimes against Palestinians.

For its part, the Bush Administration has rejected adherence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on grounds that it could be used to unjustly prosecute U.S. officials. The ICC is the first permanent tribunal established to prosecute war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.

Look, if even the anti-American left-wing Schroeder government squelched the prior attempt at prosecuting Rumsfeld, then it seems highly unlikely the pro-American center-right Merkel government will allow prosecutors to take this forward.

It doesn't matter, what matters is the allegations are going to be made, then the loony left hate America hate Bush crowd is going to be demanding investigations. That Loony crowd now controls Congress so they will start their investigations, then the investigations into who lied during the investigations. they will keep those investigations going until the get some one, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, any Republican they can toss into prison.

This is serious and we need to be really afraid. If Bush doesn't stop this then there will be impeachment. He wont get convicted, but the damage will be done. The future Presidents will look at this and never go to war without the UN again. We will have lost the war on terror and it's appeasement from here on out.

And forget Iran, we wont have anybody with the guts to stand up to them so we'll do it the UN/Clinton way. We will ask then not to make bombs and give them the reactors, then in 5 to 10 years we will all morn the death of Israel.

" says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a U.S.-based non-profit helping to bring the legal action in Germany."

* President of the Center for Constitutional Rights
* Former president of the National Lawyers Guild
* Open Borders advocate
* Leftist critic of U.S. and supporter of Communist adversaries of U.S.
* Agitates for the expansion of rights for suspected terrorists

Michael Ratner is the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which was co-founded in November 1966 by longtime members of the Communist and radical left. Today the CCR characterizes itself as an organization that "uses litigation proactively to advance the law in a positive direction, to guarantee the rights of those with the fewest protections and least access to legal resources." Among those whom the CCR counts as largely "unprotected" are terrorist organizations and illegal immigrants. The CCR is a core activist organization in the Open Borders Lobby, which seeks to eliminate all restrictions on immigration across U.S. borders. In the wake of 9/11, the CCR has focused its efforts heavily on reining in the U.S. government's newly implemented anti-terrorism measures, which the CCR depicts as having "seriously undermined civil liberties, the checks and balances that are essential to the structure of our democratic government, and indeed, democracy itself."

In March 2002, Ratner explained his views on the origins of anti-American terrorism. "If the U.S. government truly wants its people to be safer and wants terrorist threats to diminish," he said, "it must make fundamental changes in its foreign policies . . . particularly its unqualified support for Israel, and its embargo of Iraq, its bombing of Afghanistan, and its actions in Saudi Arabia. [These] continue to anger people throughout the region, and to fertilize the ground where terrorists of the future will take root." He further condemned America's post-9/11 attack on Afghanistan - stating that thousands of refugees were being forced to flee, and citing a UN prediction that some 100,000 Afghan children would die as a result of U.S. "aggression." He suggested that, as an alternative to war, the U.S. ought to "treat the attacks on September 11 as a crime against humanity, establish a UN tribunal, extradite the suspects, or if that fails, capture them with a UN force, and try them."

Prior to serving as president of the CCR, Ratner was president of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). The NLG, which originated as a Communist front, and remains, an organization that supports the Communist regimes in North Korea and Cuba, and agendas indistinguishable from Communism domestically, is today one of the chief groups championing the "rights" of illegal immigrants and terrorists, and works in close association with the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights on these issues. Also in the vanguard of those fighting to weaken America's intelligence-gathering agencies, the NLG has launched a campaign to repeal the Patriot Act, claiming that it tramples on people's civil liberties. In addition, the NLG opposes the Domestic Security Enhancement Act and the use of military tribunals for captured combatants in the War on Terror.

According to Ratner, Attorney General John Ashcroft "crystallizes for me what this administration does wrong. What Ashcroft has done is essentially take the courts out of our system of government, in not having reviews of immigration cases, not having reviews of people that are jailed . . . and . . . allowing Americans to be surveilled by the FBI and to have our privacy really invaded in terms of our political speech, our religious affiliation, and he's done that without any criminal predicate."

Ratner recently served as co-counsel in the Supreme Court case of Rasul v. Bush, where he sought to prevent the Bush Administration and the U.S. military from detaining captured Taliban and al Qaeda fighters at Guantanamo Bay while the war on terror continues. Ratner has said, "Guantanamo represents everything that is wrong with the U.S. war on terrorism. The Bush administration reacted to 9/11 with regressive and draconian measures worthy of a dictatorship, not a democracy." In his lectures to law students around the country, Ratner dons a baseball cap that reads, "Guantanamo Bay Bar Association."

Ratner's opposition to American policies is longstanding and cuts across Party lines. He sued President George Bush Sr.'s Administration - to stop the Gulf War in 1991, and the Clinton administration - to end the U.S. bombing of Kosovo.

Ratner's support of expanded terrorist rights and his pro-Communist worldview are made apparent in the books he has authored, which include: (1) Che Guervara and the FBI: The U.S. Political Police Dossier on the Latin American Revolutionary; (2) Against War with Iraq: An Anti-War Primer; and (3) Guantanamo: What the World Should Know.
Regarding the capture and eventual prosecution of Saddam Hussein, Ratner says, "If you're going to have any kind of criminal trial here, if you want any sense of legitimacy or fairness, you cannot go after Saddam Hussein. After all, the U.S., as is well known, has a war of aggression that they just fought against Iraq, a violation of any international law."

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1538

According to the articles I read about it at the time, Karpinsky was demoted and fired for failing to maintain proper discipline in her command. She was in charge, and she failed to keep her people in line.

She almost got away with it, because there are relatively few women generals. But every indication is that she was promoted over her head (the Peter Principle) and was incompetent.

Bush stood firm against allowing the International Court to judge US citizens, and I imagine he will stand firm against this initiative. So will any politicians who don't want to become extremely unpopular with the voters.

Drudge is playing this for all it's worth, but I doubt it will fly. There's NO WAY that we can allow other countries to try our officials of war crimes or international crimes that didn't take place in their jurisdictions.

Germany would only have a case if Rumsfeld went over there to Germany and committed a genuine crime--held up a bank or something. Otherwise, forget it. The internationalists are biting off a lot more than they can chew with this one.

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