don't believe that anybody has a problem on the other hand i also have a belief that we need to look forward as most as opposed to what looking back we're going back several serious crimes have been committed the evidence is public knowledge the suspects remain at large prima fashion evidence is evidence that unless rebutted by the defendant is sufficient to prove there's sufficient evidence for a prima facie case of criminal aggression against iraq committed by individuals at the highest level of government and june eleventh two thousand and ten the treaty establishing the international criminal court was amended to add the crime of aggression defined as the use of armed force in violation of the un charter united nations charter is part of the u s law because we have ratified that treaty and under the supremacy clause of the constitution treaties become the supreme law of the land once the united states ratifies them united nations charter says that all countries must settle their disputes peacefully and no country can invade another country militarily unless it has the blessing of the security council or unless it's acting in self defense neither of those two things was present before bush invaded iraq the first time we had criminal trials for the powerful people was after world war two with the nuremberg trials and their equivalent in japan and there in the powerful were the formally powerful in germany japan were put on trial found guilty and most of them were executed put in prison for very long sentences but then you can look at the numerous crimes that come in the wake of part of a war i mean the reason that in nuremberg war as they termed it aggressive war was deemed the most serious international crime was that it included with it in itself to be at the accumulation of the whole of all other crimes in march two thousand and three the united nations security council did not approve bush's attack on iraq and bush was not acting in self defense there was no indication that iraq had weapons of mass destruction there were former weapons inspectors who had said that those weapons have been destroyed during the gulf war during the decade of punishing sanctions and iraq was had not invaded any other country for twelve years since it went into kuwait so that an illegal war under the u n charter starting an unjustified war is a crime according to nuremberg and bush started two wars neither of which had what's called cause us belly there were no reasons to start wars in afghanistan and iraq right from the lead of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility the wrong which we seek to come down and punish have been so calculated schama like nine times so devastating that civilized nation cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated the principles that inform the crime of aggression were announced at nuremberg principles which must apply to all countries including the united states as prosecutor jackson declared and yet today none of the high government officials responsible for committing the crime of aggression by launching an illegal war have been prosecuted here's why by not ratifying the treaty creating the international criminal court the us government immunized itself from prosecution citing fears of politically motivated indictments of u s servicemen then in two thousand and two planning the invasion of iraq the bush administration withdrew clinton signature from the rome statute so that the treaty remains unsigned and un ratified the treaty that is not ratified is not legally binding so while the united states technically may not be prosecutable today in the i c c for the crime of aggression its failure to submit to the jurisdiction of the court represents a form of moral hypocrisy and a cynical disregard for the rule of law nevertheless although they may be immune from prosecution under the i c c bush and other high officials could still be prosecuted in a foreign court or in a u s court for the ordinary crime of criminal homicide called relationship between iraq and al qaeda have said can you please tell us isn't it true that you had intelligence that cast doubt on your you will see that falls judgments supported the views of many intelligence agencies worldwide the views of the united nations inspectors that iraq must have been hiding something hiding the iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons to saddam hussein now has weapons of mass destruction there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends against our allies and against us the united states knows that iraq has weapons of mass destruction we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud documents leaked to the london times in two thousand and five known as the downing street memos reveal that the bush administration had already planned a military attack on iraq and was manipulating intelligence to justify it official memos official documents previously secret memos from two thousand and three two thousand and two from within the british government and in particular the minutes of a meeting that had occurred back in two thousand and two with all of the top cabinet officials and prime minister tony blair and in particular the head of british intelligence richard dearlove who was just back from washington had met at  headquarters in langley spent ninety minutes with george tenet the head of the c i and was telling tony blair and the british cabinet that the united states was intent on going to war was sixteen the facts around the policy that he is was distorting the information to make a case for going to war and the minutes discussed the fact that the united states had effectively already begun was putting in troops had escalated in iraq and that the war was a done deal  regardless of what legal justification was there for a step many of the false claims about iraq's chemical weapons and its ties to al qaeda came from this man even who was captured in afghanistan and sent by the cia to egypt where he was tortured to another country in this case egypt where he would be tortured by egyptian interrogators trained in the use of torture on behalf of the united states that operatives from al qaeda had been meeting with saddam hussein to discuss the use of chemical and biological weapons now this was a complete lie  that he could use it as part of his plans for the invasion of iraq where it did end up with with colin powell the secretary of state who notoriously used that piece of information when he went to the u n security council a before the invasion of iraq to tell him a whole lot of reasons why the invasion was so paul with the printers work like we know with the tanks pumps compressors and other parts look like we know how they fit together we know how they work and one key element of that speech people and general people how many people do they think were waterboarding by the department of defense they would make it sound like thousands yeah the answer is zero i don't think we should just roll over when the new administration says  uses of committing torture which we did not or somehow violating the law which we did not and the best information we can get is from people we take off the battlefield so we can act on it so we can stop plots before they happen and whatever we have done is legal slam same as in the law we had lawyers look at it and say mr president this is lawful that's all i can tell you in the wake of the attack on afghanistan in two thousand and one hundreds of individuals some as young as thirteen were captured on the battlefield and transported to a u s military base on the island of cuba guantanamo outside u s territory these men were beyond the reach of american law blindfolded and shackled they were accused of being terrorists and held without the right to a proper trial they were deprived of sleep subjected to extreme temperatures loud music and worse eight are known to have died in captivity other suspected terrorists were rounded up and abducted by the cia to black site in various countries where they were subjected to even harsher treatment including waterboarding the convention against torture the geneva conventions i rarely clear about the provisions against torture even in times of war torture is in principle and needs to one be prosecuted so that it's clear that that type of behavior can't can never happen again the type of abuse should never happen again and not just prohibit it but also prosecute it it has often been claimed that the geneva conventions don't appl to al qaeda that they were not uniformed members of an armed force of a nation well that's not the complete story there is within the geneva convention common article three that says that no person may be subjected to cruel and inhumane punishment detention torture and the like any person that comes into the custody and control of the united states or any party to the geneva conventions in a wartime or a civil strife situation is protected by the geneva conventions and the united states supreme court in the home don case held that specifically so there is no safe haven for anyone within the bush administration to  suggest that the geneva conventions are not fully applicable in this situation now the convention against torture says that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever including a state of war can ever be used as a justification for torture nevertheless the officials the high officials in the bush administration were together with their legal mercenaries john yoo jay bybee and others created a policy a program of torture and including waterboarding which the united states has long considered to be torture and unknown numbers of men and women have been tortured and subjected to cruel treatment all illegal of which is you know fundamentally and dangerously irresponsible because it's simply not true i think it's just a misconception that these in a misunderstanding that these techniques actually produce valuable evidence in fact there's  a mountain of evidence that it produces intelligence that can't be relied upon that people lie just to get them to stop doing these things to them that there's no way to know what what these people are saying is something that interrogating and you know you have a number of psychological tricks that you can use but essentially you know you're confronted with somebody who is deprived of their liberty they're not going anywhere and you know you can find a way in which you can get those people to speak it's not rocket science it's not an impossibility now in the war on terror these handful of terrorists identified by the united states have been built up or some kind of superman figures  impervious to any of these kind of human weaknesses and frailties that have traditionally and effectively been exploited by professional interrogators for ages so you know it's been it was for whatever reasons you know it was the intent of the bush administration to torture people even though that was wrong and illegal and they went through that process is it like a show that would happen and so for example getting lawyers to write one of the most nefarious characters in this sad tale is a lawyer named john yoo who was in the office of legal counsel his duty was to provide independent honest advice to the president regarding a political loss early in the bush administration john yoo was tasked with examining the question of torture what constituted torture the request of the cia which wanted to engage in what they called enhanced interrogation techniques they were actually listing the techniques that they wanted to use on detainees detainees had begun to be captured in late two thousand and one and early two thousand and two the guantanamo bay prison was opened in cuba for that very purpose and so the list of possible interrogation techniques including waterboarding were submitted to the justice department and eventually to and we now have some of those memos not all of the memos have ever been released and what we see from my standpoint is legal malpractise memos written with a result in mind which was to authorize and ratify and approve those techniques what john yoo did was to write memos that were entirely result oriented the result was to pre approve the techniques that the cia wanted to use on detainee are number of different things that you could do early pertaining to executive orders right one of them is to shut down guantanamo bay and another is to change the interrogation methods that are used by u s troops are those things that you plan to take early action on yes i have said repeatedly that i intend to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that i've said repeatedly that america doesn't torture and i'm going to make sure that we don't torture those are  those are part and parcel of an effort to regain america's moral stature and he prepared to take the oath senator i  regulations mr bright in keeping with his promise for a more open government the new president and a website created to respond to questions from the public in january two thousand and nine over seventy transition team the top ranked question was this will you appoint a special prosecutor to independently investigate the greatest crimes of the bush administration including torture and but while members of the public were asking whether anybody from the previous administration would be held to account pundits and politicians weighed in on the subject or this whole thing about punishing people in past administrations reminds me more of a banana republic than the united states of america we don't criminally prosecute people we disagree with what if we change office we said that kind of pressure we're not better than a banana republic that we somehow criminalize our political system i mean you know in a manner where the public one rule book throws out the other growth and they put them all in jail and then they stay there until somebody else comes along and throws him again i don't see this as a legal issue i see this as a policy issue and for the congress of the the question from the open government website remain unanswered and obviously we're only looking at past practices and i don't believe that anybody has put the law on the other hand i also have a belief that we need to look forward as los as opposed to looking looking backwards