CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
Amnesty: Investigate Bush, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Gonzales
19 Corporate Crime Reporter 22(3), May 25, 2005
Amnesty International today called on foreign governments to “uphold their
obligations under international law” and investigate at least one dozen
current and former U.S. officials – including President George Bush, Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former CIA
Director George Tenet – all implicated in the development or implementation
of interrogation techniques that constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment.
“While the U.S. government has failed to conduct a genuinely independent
and comprehensive investigation, the officials implicated in these crimes are
nonetheless subject to investigation and possible arrest by other nations while
traveling abroad,” the human rights group said.
Those implicated include “government lawyers who advocated or approved
setting aside critical protections against torture or recommended interrogation
methods that constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as
well as military officers who implemented those decisions.”
While the U.S. bears primary responsibility for investigating these acts, Amnesty
International said that it found that more than 125 countries have laws permitting
investigation of serious crimes committed outside their borders.
"Tolerance for torture and ill-treatment, signaled by a failure to investigate
and prosecute those responsible, is the most effective encouragement for it
to spread and grow,” said William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty
International USA. “Like a virus, the techniques used by the United States
will multiply and spread unless those who plotted their use are held accountable.
The U.S. government's response to the torture scandal amounts to a whitewash
of senior officials' involvement and responsibility. Those who conducted the
abusive interrogations must be held to account, but so too must those who schemed
to authorize those actions, sometimes from the comfort of government buildings.
If the United States permits the architects of torture policy to get off scot-free,
then other nations should step into the breach."
Certain crimes, including torture and other grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, are so serious that they amount to an offense against the whole of humanity and therefore all states have a responsibility to investigate and prosecute people responsible for these crimes, Schulz said.
This principle applies wherever those suspected of the crimes happen to be, whatever their nationality or position, regardless of where the crime was committed and the nationality of the victims, and no matter how much time has elapsed since the commission of the crime, he said.
On October 16, 1998, Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London in connection with torture and "disappearances" in Chile at a time when he was president of that country.
Although approximately 125 members of the U.S. armed forces have either been court-martialed or received non-judicial punishment or other administrative action, to date no one in the extended chain of command, including those who formulated policies on the treatment and interrogation of prisoners, has been held accountable, Schulz said.
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