Iraq & the Nuremberg Precedent

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Editor's Note: As the United States approaches the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, much of the commentary is focusing on the Bush administration's "incompetence" in prosecuting the war -- the failure to commit enough troops, the decision to disband the old Iraqi army without adequate plans for training a new one, the highhandedness of the U.S. occupation.

But what about the legal and moral questions arising from the unprovoked invasion of Iraq? Should George W. Bush and his top aides be held accountable for violating the laws against aggressive war that the United States and other Western nations promulgated in punishing senior Nazis after World War II? Do the Nuremberg precedents that prohibit one nation from invading another apply to Bush and American officials -- or are they somehow immune? Put bluntly, should Bush and his inner circle face a war-crimes tribunal for the tens of thousands of deaths in Iraq?

Despite the present-day conventional wisdom in Washington that these are frivolous questions, they actually go to the heart of the American commitment to the rule of law and the concept that the law applies to everyone. In this guest essay, Peter Dyer looks at this larger issue:

Just over six decades ago, the first Nuremberg Trial began. On Nov. 21, 1945, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson opened the prosecution of 21 Germans for initiating a war of aggression and for the crimes which flowed from this act. Now is a good time to reconsider some of the history and issues involved in this momentous trial in the light of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m21602&hd=0&size=1&l=e