U.S. Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld listens to opening remarks during the House defense budget subcommittee, Feb. 5, 2003 (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters). |
Secretary Rumsfeld should be investigated for war crimes and
torture by US troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo
under the doctrine of “command responsibility.” Secretary
Rumsfeld created the conditions for U.S. troops to commit war
crimes and torture by sidelining and disparaging the Geneva Conventions,
by approving interrogation techniques that violated the Geneva
Conventions as well as the Convention against Torture, and by
approving the hiding of detainees from the International Committee
of the Red Cross. From the earliest days of the war in Afghanistan,
Secretary Rumsfeld was on notice through briefings, ICRC reports,
human rights reports, and press accounts that U.S. troops were
committing war crimes, including acts of torture. However, there
is no evidence that he ever exerted his authority and warned
that the mistreatment of prisoners must stop. Had he done so,
many of the crimes committed by U.S. forces could have been avoided.
An investigation would also determine whether the illegal interrogation
techniques that Secretary Rumsfeld approved for Guantánamo
were actually used to inflict inhuman treatment on detainees
there before he rescinded his approval to use them without requesting
his permission. It would also examine whether Secretary Rumsfeld
approved a secret program that encouraged physical coercion and
sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners, as alleged by the journalist
Seymour Hersh. If either were true, Secretary Rumsfeld might
also, in addition to command responsibility, incur liability
as the instigator of crimes against detainees.
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