What It Takes To Start A War

Dear Mr. President,

By custom there is no statute of limitations on war crimes or crimes against humanity. This was codified in the Rome Statute (2002) and the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity (1968). We never ratified the former or signed the latter, but we’ve used them to accuse others. Yesterday’s NYT (“To Ousted Boss, Arms Watchdog Was Seen as an Obstacle in Iraq” p. A4) reveals behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the Bush administration in 2002 to oust José Bustani, then head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the agency just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. One day in early 2002 John Bolton, then an undersecretary of state, told Bustani he had 24 hours to resign or “face the consequences.” Washington wanted Bustani out because his inspectors—and everyone else—knew that Iraq had no WMDs; that they had been destroyed after the Gulf War. But WMDs was the justification for invading Iraq and if the public learned there were none, the invasion of Iraq would be revealed for what it was, a naked act of aggression for control of Middle East oil fields. Bustani refused to resign so Washington accused him of incompetence and tried—but failed—to get a vote of no confidence from the agency’s executive committee. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had praised Bustani in 2001, told him, “I have people in the administration who don’t want Bustani to stay, and my role is to inform you of this.” The article specifically mentions Bolton and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “wanting the head of Bustani.” In the end, they got rid of him by pressuring Japan, Great Britain and other countries to threaten to cut off funding for the agency if Bustani stayed. The cabal accounted for half the agency’s budget and it would have collapsed if that happened, so Bustani left, the myth of Iraq’s WMDs continued, and the invasion of Iraq resulted in an estimated 650,000 Iraqi deaths. The country was left in ruins and is still wracked by violence, worse off than under Saddam Hussein. The actions of Bolton, Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney and others who consciously lied to the American people and the world, who promoted a senseless and unjust war that still rages a decade later is a war crime and a crime against humanity, Mr. President. And by your refusal to “look backward,” to hold anyone accountable for the atrocities and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, you are complicit.