DONALD Rumsfeld is not the only Bush administration official who deserves to be tried for war crimes; there are others too, and the list is long. In a TV interview on Sunday, vice president-elect Joe Biden did not rule out the possibility of the former defence secretary being tried for prisoner abuse at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
The pictures taken at Abu Ghraib had revealed to the world the extent of torture water boarding, hooding the prisoners tied to wires, using ferocious dogs, and making the suspects take stress positions. One photograph showed a woman officer smiling while having herself snapped over a prisoner's body. Many Americans have already been tried for the torture of men and women at the infamous prison in Iraq and convicted. However, they were armed forces personnel and like the defendants at Nuremberg took the plea that they were obeying orders and had been authorized by the higher authorities to resort to torture to obtain further information and confessions.
At Nuremberg, all those tried were not necessarily generals. Many civilian leaders - including Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop and Armament Ministers Albert Speer were also tried and convicted for waging wars of aggression. Rumsfeld was only one of many neocon hawks embedded in the Bush administration who planned and launched on Iraq a war that had no justification.
Ba'athist Iraq was not a sponsor of terrorism and did not possess WMDs as consequently reported by the Hans Blix Commission authorized by the UN to determine whether or not the Saddam regime possessed any WMDs. Yet the neocons were determined to destroy Iraq even before 9/11. In fact, without waiting for a second UN Council authorization for war, the neocons saw to it that the war was launched and Iraq destroyed. Besides Vice President Dick Cheney, the neocons included Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis ‘Scooter' Libby, Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, John Bolton and Douglas Feith occupying key positions.
Earlier this month, a report released by the Senate Armed Services Committee held Rumsfeld and some officials responsible for the abuses but specifically blamed Rumsfeld for authorizing "aggressive interrogation techniques". He later rescinded the order but word had gone around and the committee said Rumsfeld's actions were "a direct cause of detainee abuse" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Iraq war is not America's last war. The one in Afghanistan is continuing, and the US is ready to send up to 30,000 more troops to Pakistan's western neighbor. Justice will be done to the victims of the torture and the image of America, which has plummeted in the years after 9/11 especially in the Muslim world, will only be repaired if men like Rumsfeld are placed in the dock and asked to account for their gross abuse of prisoners' rights.
Feroz Ahmed Bawany goal is to increase my knowledge and to understand the only civilized creations of Almighty Lord are HUMAN. He is a regular contributer to TRCB.com.
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