DOJ Seeks Immunity For Bush War Crimes

By James Donahue

Lawyers for the U. S. Department of Justice have asked a Federal Court judge in San Francisco to grant immunity for former President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz in a case alleging they planned and waged an illegal act of war in Iraq.

In the first known war crimes case filed against the Bush gang on U. S. soil, Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi woman and refugee now living in Jordan is alleging that the planning and waging of the war constituted a “crime of aggression” against Iraq. The case, filed on Tuesday, August 20, draws on the legal theory used by the Nurenberg Tribunal to convict Nazi war criminals after World War II.

Mr. Bush and his staff argued that the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was harboring “weapons of mass destruction” and therefore was a possible threat to the United States. Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair joined forces in attacking Iraq and waging a seven-year unprovoked assault on Iraq, leading to the arrest and murder of Hussein, a destruction of the nation’s infrastructure, and killing and displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

Hussein always denied that he had atomic or biological weapons. His claims were supported by United Nations investigative teams even before the attack, and afterwards a thorough search failed to turn up any evidence of such weapons.

In the Saleh case, the Department of Justice is arguing that Bush and the key members of his administration were “acting within the legitimate scope of their employment and are thus immune from suit.”

Chief Counsel Inder Comar argues that the Westfall Act Certification on 1988 permits the Attorney General to “substitute the United States as the defendant in this case and thus grant absolute immunity to government employees for actions taken within the scope of their employment.”

In other words, the president and his staff are allowed to pillage and bomb any country in the world at their discretion and escape criminal charges under the guise of acting on behalf of the United States. As a world bully, we have thus, through legal manipulation, declared ourselves immune to any charges of criminal behavior, no matter what we do.

In her suit Saleh claims:  

-- Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz began planning the Iraq War in 1998 through their involvement with the “Project for the New American Century,” a Washington DC non-profit that advocated for the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

-- Once they came to power, Saleh alleges that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz convinced other Bush officials to invade Iraq by using 9/11 as an excuse to mislead and scare the American public into supporting a war.

-- Saleh also claims that the United States failed to obtain United Nations approval prior to the invasion, rendering the invasion illegal and an act of impermissible aggression.