From the chickens have a habit of roosting department:
Donald Rumsfeld spent the early part of the week wondering why the President wouldn’t phone him back. Then he watched the Republicans get booted out of everywhere but the White House — at which point I guess he started hoping the President wouldn’t call. Then the President called.
Now the soon-to-be former Secretary of Defence can take a short vacation… until next Tuesday, when some folks from his own country are going to file a complaint against him in a German court. The Center for Constitutional Rights in the US intends for this complaint to lead to war crimes charges.
From their release on the subject:
The complaint requests the German Federal Prosecutor open an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking U.S. officials for authorizing war crimes in the context of the so-called “War on Terror.” Former White House Counsel (and current Attorney General) Alberto Gonzalez, former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, and other high-ranking U.S. officials are also charged in the complaint. The complaint is brought on behalf of 12 torture victims – 11 Iraqi citizens who were held at Abu Ghraib prison and one Guantanamo detainee – and is being filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Republican Attorneys’ Association (RAV) and others…
I guess the known known coming out of this is that Rumsfeld won’t be planning any trips to Germany soon.
Thanks to Talking Points Memo for the tip on this.