Cheney May Be Guilty as War Criminal

A former senior US state department official said US Vice-president Dick Cheney could be guilty of war crimes over issue of prisoner abuse, again putting hawkish Cheney at the center of accusations that are likely to further worsen the Bush administration's already bruised image, a leading British daily reported Wednesday, November 30. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, said that in an internal administration debate over whether to abide by the Geneva conventions in the treatment of detainees, Cheney led the argument "that essentially wanted to do away with all restrictions", according to The Guardian. Answering a question on whether Cheney was guilty of a war crime, Wilkerson told the BBC's Today program: "Well, that's an interesting question - it was certainly a domestic crime to advocate terror and I would suspect that it is ... an international crime as well." In the context of other remarks it appeared he was using the word "terror" to apply to the systematic abuse of prisoners. US daily The Washington Post in October called Cheney the "vice-president for torture" for his demand that the CIA be exempted from a ban on "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of detainees. The US Senate voted overwhelmingly in October to ban cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners under US custody. But the CIA was exempted from the bill after heavy lobbying by the White House, led by Cheney. Such charges have kept the Bush administration on the defensive for several months. Bush, however, Tuesday repeated his earlier assertion that the US "does not torture and that's important for people around the world to realize". But it has now emerged that two justice department memos listing permissible interrogation methods have been kept secret by the White House, even from the Senate intelligence committee. The New Yorker recently quoted a source who had seen a memo as calling it "breathtaking", as per The Guardian. "The document dismissed virtually all national and international laws regulating the treatment of prisoners, including war crimes and assault statutes, and it was radical in its view that in wartime the president can fight enemies by whatever means he sees fit," the magazine reported. The measure was a response to the damaging 2004 Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners exploded onto world stage April 29, 2004, after the CBS news network published several graphic photos of Iraqi detainees tortured and sexually abused by American soldiers at the Baghdad-based prison. Several photographs taken in late 2003 at the prison outside Baghdad show detainees wearing women's underwear on their heads, detainees shackled to their cell doors or beds in awkward positions, and naked detainees standing before female soldiers. Torture Definition Torture techniques have been a policy applied by the US authorities in a number of notorious jails around the world. One technique allegedly used by the CIA in questioning suspects is "water boarding" (strapping a detainee to a board and submerging it until the prisoner believes he or she is drowning), according to the British daily. The White House is accused of defining "torture" so narrowly as to exclude such methods. But James Ross, a legal expert at New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) told the Guardian such a narrow definition was at odds with international norms. "Water boarding is clearly a form of torture. It has been used since the Inquisition. It was a well-known torture technique in Latin America," Ross said. HRW has called for a special counsel to investigate any US officials - no matter their rank or position - who took part in, "ordered, or had command responsibility for war crimes or torture, or other prohibited ill-treatment against detainees in US custody". The report focused on the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, for his alleged command responsibility for abuses at Abu Ghraib, but Wilkerson argued Cheney was ultimately responsible. The United States is a signatory to the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture, which bans inflicting "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental". Such practices are also a crime under US federal law. Iraq Role On the Iraq invasion-turned-occupation issue, Wilkerson, a former army colonel, said he had seen increasing evidence that the White House had manipulated pre-war intelligence on Iraq to make its case for the invasion. "You begin to wonder was this intelligence spun? Was it politicised? Was it cherry-picked? Did, in fact, the American people get fooled? I am beginning to have my concerns." Cheney has been under fire for his role in assembling evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson was quoted by the daily as telling the Associated Press (AP) that the vice-president must have sincerely believed Iraq could be a spawning ground for terrorism because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard". Bush is due to make the first of a series of speeches Wednesday November 30, outlining his plan to defeat the resistance in Iraq and pave the way for US withdrawal. The White House will also publish a declassified version of its war plan, according to the daily.

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