The White House's top
lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be
prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox
measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism,
according to an internal White House memo and interviews with
participants in the debate over the issue.
The concern about possible
future prosecution for war crimes - and that it might even apply
to Bush administration officials themselves - is contained in a
crucial portion of an internal January 25, 2002, memo by White
House counsel Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges
President George Bush declare the war in Afghanistan, including
the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the
provisions of the Geneva Convention.
-
Michael Isikoff, Newsweek website, 5/17/04
The Pentagon has begun criminal
investigations of at least 37 deaths involving detainees held by
U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials said Friday. There
are 33 cases involved, the officials said, eight more than the
military reported two weeks ago....
Of the 15 other cases that
happened inside detention facilities, four were categorized as
justifiable homicides, two as homicides, and nine were still under
active investigation, the official said. Eight of those nine
have been classified as homicides involving suspected assaults on
detainees before or during questioning.
-
Associated Press, 5/21/04
Two weeks ago Senator Ted
Kennedy uttered what may turn out to be the single most disgusting
remark made about the United States in the course of the Iraq War.
The reaction to his slander - or rather, the lack of reaction -
speaks volumes about the moral bankruptcy of the American
left.
Speaking in the Senate on May
10, Kennedy had this to say about the Abu Ghraib prison
scandal:
"On March 19, 2004, President
Bush asked, 'Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still
be open?' Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers
reopened under new management - US management."
This was not a blurted,
off-the-cuff comment - Kennedy was reading from a prepared text.
It was not a shocked first reaction to the abuses at Abu Ghraib -
the story had broken more than a week earlier. Incredibly, the
senior senator from Massachusetts really was equating the
disgraceful mistreatment of a few Iraqi prisoners by a few
American troops with the unspeakable sadism, rape, and mass
murder that had been routine under Saddam Hussein.
-
Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe website, 5/25/04
