Group Sues to Have Rumsfeld Investigated

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld arrives the White House Monday, Nov. 13, 2006, to meet with the Iraq Study Group at the White House. The Iraq Study Group is meeting with President Bush and members of his cabinet. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds) (Ron Edmonds - AP)

"Abu Ghraib is something that the U.S. government has investigated very thoroughly," Whitman said, noting more than a dozen inquiries and some hearings before the U.S. Congress.

"The appropriate individuals have been held accountable," Whitman said, adding that some are serving jail time.

Although abuses have been investigated in other services, figures were immediately available only from the Army, which has said that by the middle of this year, there were some 85 courts-martial, 93 nonjudicial punishments and 81 administrative actions against troops for detainee abuses around the world, according to the Army.

There have been about a dozen Abu Ghraib-related courts-martial and 11 Abu Ghraib- related convictions.

Critics have complained that charges and punishments did not reach high enough into the department _ that is, to top officials such as Rumsfeld and others who set policy.

In addition to Rumsfeld, the suit names Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet, former commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and eight others, alleging that they all either ordered, aided, or failed to prevent war crimes.

A case could not be brought with the International Criminal Court, because the United States is not a member, Ratner said. The case could not be pursued through the U.N. because the U.S. has veto power, he added.

Though Ratner acknowledges it is unlikely Rumsfeld will ever end up in a German prison, a successful case here could put him in the position of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who has been dogged by questions abroad about his alleged involvement in a plot in the 1970s and 1980s to eliminate Latin American dissidents.

Even if the prosecutors fail to take the case up this time, the suit has focused renewed media attention to the issue of torture, Ratner said.

"We have won a part of this case already," he said.