If you measure success against an enemy in terms of how much that enemy hates you, then Donald Rumsfeld has been very, very successful. To bad some of those enemies are cleverly disguised as lawyers. This latests news follows on from my postings on Rumsfeld here and here.
From our friends over at Time:
Just days after his resignation, 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.
[…]
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.
So there we have it, a move to try Rumsfeld, Tenet and several others for war crimes in their prosecution of the war on terror. Irony upon Irony, it is the very terrorists supported by organizations like the Center for (un)Constitutional Rights who are brining the suit.
If you are as of yet unaware of who the Center of (un)Constitutional Rights is, I suggest looking though this article.
It seems funny that Time is calling this an “Exclusive”. I guess they do not read the blogosphere.
To be clear on this, Germany’s only involvement currently, is that they are the system in which the charges are being brought. Germany has not yet agreed to hear the case, nor made any comment on the issue — I am sure that will follow latter.
Michelle Malkin put it succinctly:
The German government isn’t filing the lawsuit. It’s 11 Iraqis and a Saudi who went court-shopping and filed in Germany because the country “provides ‘universal jurisdiction’ allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world.” A previous lawsuit was filed on similar grounds and was dismissed. Yes, Germany has its share of weasels. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel isn’t one of them and outrage at the country is premature.
I hope the Germans have enough sense to dump this case with some strong words to the those who filed the charges. The charges are lunacy, and likely filed more to get a reaction than though any misplaced hope of success. I hope the Whitehouse releases a suitably strong statement in this matter, though I expect they will wait to hear from Germany out of an abundance of caution.
What bothers me most here is the simple fact that organizations like the CCR and the ACLU are more concerned with the rights of known terrorists that the rights of Heros like Rumsfeld and our Troops. I call that organization un-American, a step down from Ambulance Chaser heritage of that subspecies.
Also reporting:
Stop the ACLU
Hot Air
Michelle Malkin
Wizbang
