Rights Watchdog Demands Rumsfeld Abuse Inquiry

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0425-10.htm

Published on Monday, April 25, 2005 by OneWorld US

Rights Watchdog Demands Rumsfeld Abuse Inquiry
by Abid Aslam

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government should name a special prosecutor to look at Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's possible role in the torture and abuse of Iraqi and other prisoners by U.S. troops, a leading human rights group has demanded.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a report released on Sunday, said Rumsfeld might bear ''command responsibility'' for abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

''This pattern of abuse across several countries did not result from the acts of individual soldiers who broke the rules,'' said HRW lawyer Reed Brody. ''It resulted from decisions made by senior U.S. officials to bend, ignore, or cast rules aside.''

The doctrine of command responsibility holds superiors responsible for crimes committed by subordinates when the superiors knew or should have known that they were being committed but failed to take reasonable measures to stop them.

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