Donald Rumsfeld in Threat of Being Prosecuted!

The former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is soon to be prosecuted for the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and at the US detention facility located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This is just another repercussion Donald Rumsfeld is facing since his resignation as US Secretary of Defense. The court filing is to be held in Germany because the German law allows for the prosecution of war crimes and associated wrongdoings that have taken place anywhere in the world.

The offenses based on the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison has been described before by Haider Sabbar Abed al-Abbadi, whom describes to reporters the abuse he and several other prisoners underwent. There were also several pictures that showed the cruelty these prisoners had to face. I will not go into details as this has already been explained, however I think it is ironic that these prisoners were punished in the same prison Saddam Hussein used to torture his own prisoners.

There are also charges for the abuses that were committed at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This is mainly based on one individual, Mohammad al-Qahtani, in which the US has said is the 20th hijacker in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Donald Rumsfeld approved the interrogation plan that Qahtani underwent and the US has said that this interrogation produced valuable intelligence. However, Qahtani was forced nude & sexually humiliated, religiously humiliated and other disruptive interrogation techniques during his imprisonment at the US detention facility.

This is no coincidence that Donald Rumsfeld is being prosecuted just days after his resignation, because as the US Secretary of Defense, or any other high governing official, he was under legal immunity. Michael Ratner, who is the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and is helping bring this legal action to Germany, said “The utter and complete failure of US authorities to take any action to investigate high-level involvement in the torture program could not be clearer.” He also mentions that the Military Commissions Act that was just recently passed protects these high governing officials from being prosecuted in the US.

Donald Rumsfeld is not the only defendant in this case. Others include former CIA director George Tenet, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other US military and civilian officers. No comment has been made by the Pentagon because the case has yet to be filed. The Bush Administration is rejecting adherence to the International Criminal Court, ICC, because they feel that this will be used to unjustly prosecute US officials. So it seems that the Bush Administration is now being sought after for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have a bad feeling that this is only the beginning of the prosecutions that the Bush administration will receive.