The cloud that will forever hang over our Moron (until he's properly convicted and jailed)

Commentary: War crime charges threat to ground Bush?

Louis Werner

NEW YORK -- He would probably never be able to attract hefty speakers' fees abroad, like the $2 million Ronald Reagan earned in Japan just days after leaving the White House. It is unlikely he would even wish to travel to developing countries as Jimmy Carter still does at the age of 82. He would be foolhardy to risk private visits to the Middle East, in the manner of the retired Bush Senior. And he certainly would never be invited, as was Bill Clinton, to serve as a UN special envoy to foster goodwill.

Instead, as soon as he leaves office at noon, January 20, 2009, George W. Bush is likely to head back to Texas, and stay there. Why? Because he may well fear being thrown into jail if he ever left US sanctuary. Overseas, the threat of indictment, extradition, and arrest hangs heavy. Just like it was for Augusto Pinochet.

The precedent set in 1998 by former Chilean president Pinochet's 16-month house arrest in Britain, while the House of Lords dealt with Spanish prosecutor Balthazar Garzon's request to extradite him to Spain to face charges of torturing Spanish citizens, should be enough to limit Bush's post-White House travel plans. And the close call sitting prime minister Ariel Sharon faced in a Belgian courthouse - criminal indictment for the Sabra and Shatila massacres - should worry him even more.

Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Paul Wolfowitz, and other former US officials are presently facing war crime charges in a German court for torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Germany law provides for "universal jurisdiction" over all crimes, committed by anyone, anywhere, which must be prosecuted for the "good of humanity." Since there is no statute of limitations, George W. Bush's name may be added to the list of those charged at any time.

A fully-documented 384-page request for prosecution of the above named suspects is now before the German federal prosecutor's office, filed by a German lawyer, on behalf of the US' Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents 12 torture victims, under Germany's 2002 Code of Crimes Against International Law.

Similar charges against Rumsfeld were first filed in 2004. German prosecutors then declined to act, arguing that the accused had immunity as a US official, and that they believed American courts would and should be the first to move. Given that Rumsfeld has since resigned and that US prosecutors are unable now to file any charges - following passage of a 2006 American law giving US officials retroactive immunity from all Iraq war crimes - German prosecutors should be reinvigorated.

The 2004 legal procedure against Rumsfeld caused real consternation at the Pentagon, forcing him to cancel a scheduled German military summit - a move meant as much to avoid possible arrest as to express official US disapproval to the German government - until the earlier charges were dropped.

A legal loophole permits prosecutors to decline to act if the charged party is not currently on German soil. Under EU law, however, the physical presence of the accused in any EU country - should Rumseld ever wish, for example, to visit the "new Europe" of unapologetic US allies Poland or Romania - may constitute grounds for the German indictment to go forward.

If so, Rumsfeld would have to move through Europe on fast feet in order to stay one step ahead of the law. Says Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights: "These boys can no longer sleep peacefully."

There is no doubt that European prosecutors and courts are feeling less constrained in going after American officials accused of US government-sanctioned crimes. An Italian court has indicted 26 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives, including the Rome bureau chief thought to be involved in the kidnapping of Muslim cleric Abu Omar from Milan in 2003. Extradition requests for the 26, now on US soil, may be forwarded to the US Department of Justice at any moment.

In the meantime, one can be certain none of those CIA operatives will ever again visit Italy, or any other EU member country with reciprocal legal obligations, whether for business or pleasure. In February, the European Parliament asked that extradition procedures for any charges involving rendition from European soil be expedited through local courts. Loopholes are closing fast.

Last month, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he foresaw a time when Bush Junior and Tony Blair might, themselves, face war crime charges. He encouraged Arab countries, in particular Iraq, to ask for standing before his court in order to facilitate such a process.

And if all this international legal wrangling comes to naught? At least Mr. Bush will face a modicum of justice by being stuck in the USA for the rest of his life. Even a proud Texas provincial such as he may one day wish to use his passport, yet the mere possibility of an indictment may keep him on the ranch.

And there is always the chance that what subsequently happened to Pinochet might happen also to him. The Spanish court's moral example finally convinced his own government to strip the former president of immunity from prosecution, and he spent his last years fighting off charges where it mattered most to him - back home, under his own country's laws.

Louis Werner is a frequent Contributor to El Legado Andalusi, a Spanish cultural dialogue journal. He contributed this commentary to the Middle East Times.

Orignal article posted here.