Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

"The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld", Book From The Center for Constitutional Rights

Many concerned US  citizens tend to think of war criminals as being the people that the International Criminal Court  or other International Criminal Tribunals, indict and attempt to capture and bring to trial, from places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Darfur, Serbia or Chile.

Not often does it cross our minds  that  U.S. citizens and even U.S. government officials, might also be war criminals. How can that be possible since we are the ones constantly telling other countries and their leaders about democracy and respecting human rights ? After all, doesn't the US provide the main location for  the United Nations with it's myriad humanitarian programs. Don't we provide asylum to hundreds of dissidents fleeing oppressive and even murderous regimes? How can someone make the  case that some of our own national leadership might be guilty of war crimes and of undermining our own values and institutions ?

Attorney Michael Ratner and  The Center for Constitutional Rights do just that in the book "The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld A Prosecution by Book.  The subtitle is telling, as this may be the only place where defendants are identified, evidence marshaled and a verdict  required. As an excerpt from the book says:

"This is an unusual trial. It is occurring in the form of a book that lays out the evidence that high-level officials of the George W. Bush administration have ordered, authorized, implemented and permitted war crimes, in particular the crimes of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. We are proceeding to build this case against what we call the “torture defendants” in this way because at this point there appears to be no other means of holding high Bush administration officials criminally responsible for their war crimes."

An article in the Winter 2008 Amnesty International Magazine, "The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld"  provides information for the charges that high US government official and advisers violated the international Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. War Crimes Statute and the federal Torture Statute. The book is available from AMAZON and a PDF document of the first two sections, The opening Statement and the Summary of the Indictment, can be downloaded from the Center's website.
 

Congressional Commission Report Highlights Bioterrorism

During the first week of December when most of us were either doing some holiday shopping or wondering whether we could do any holiday shopping, a special commission  created by Congress in the aftermath of Sept. 11, released a  report even more sobering then the extreme economic conditions we find  ourselves  in! 

The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, established in 2007, had the mandate to " to build on the work of the 9/11 Commission and complete a critical task: to assess our nation’s progress in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, and to provide a roadmap to greater security with concrete recommendations for improvement."

While the report deals with several areas of potential threats to the population of the U.S, it chose to highlight the importance  of biological proliferation and terrorism. As the introduction to that chapter states,"To date, the U.S. government has invested most of its nonproliferation efforts and diplomatic capital in preventing nuclear terrorism. The Commission believes that it should make the more likely threat— bioterrorism—a higher priority. Only by elevating the priority of the biological weapons threat will it be possible to bring about substantial improvements in global biosecurity. To this end, the new administration should urgently develop a comprehensive approach to the prevention of biological proliferation and terrorism."

DePaul law professor, Barry Kellman, has been working on these issues as the director of the  International Weapons Control Center at the DePaul University College of Law. In a  recent news release he provides  praise for  the commission bringing attention to these serious issues but has some criticism  for the inadequacies in the government's  measures to prevent bio-terrorism.  He also provides specific recommendations that have been developed from the Center's own work.