The following are the full references to quotations found in George W. Bush: War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes:
“The president is like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people.” — Paul O’Neill, recalling a Cabinet meeting on March 19, 2001, as reported in Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill (2004), p. 149
“Those guys were using techniques [including waterboarding] that we didn’t even want to be in the room for . . . . The CIA determined they were going to torture people, and we made the decision not to be involved.” — senior FBI official, mid-2002, quoted in Meyer, “FBI Works to Bolster Cases on Al Qaeda,”Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2007
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.” — Specialist Sean Baker, January 24, 2003, after volunteering to be IRF’d at Guantánamo, resulting in brain damage, as quoted in Smith, Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side (2007), p. 225
“We are truly ‘sleepwalking through history.’ In my heart of hearts I pray that this great nation and its good and trusting citizens are not in for a rudest of awakenings. To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a last resort, not a first choice.” — Senator Robert Byrd, February 12, 2003, opposing a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq on the floor of the Senate
“[A] local expression describes abuses by gunmen [of Afghan warlord Ismail Khan] as happening ‘right under the mustaches’ of the Americans.” — Human Rights Watch, Killing You Is a Very Easy Thing for UsJuly 28, 2003
“The Governing Council denounced the occupation foreces for ‘cruelty and violence used against citizens whose homes were being searched by Coalition forces’.” — Iraq Governing Council, July 21, 2003, quoted by Ali Allawai, The Occupation (2007), p. 167
“Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force.” — Major General Antonio Taguba, Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade, January 28, 2004
“No good lawyer.” — James Comey, former Deputy Attorney General, March 2004, after his criticism that a legal memo of John Yoo would not be endorsed by any practicing lawyer was contradicted by David Addington, Legal Counsel to the Vice President, who said that he was a lawyer and he endorsed the memo. Quoted in Shane, Johnson, & Risen, “Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations,” New York Times, October 4, 2007.
“”When US troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad, they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point and then attack the general area with artillery, even though the area they are attacking may be in the middle of a densely populated residential area. They may well kill the terrorists in the barrage, but they will also kill and maim innocent civilians. That has been their response on a number of occasions. It is trite, but American troops do shoot first and ask questions later.” — senior British military officer, quoted in Rayment, “British Commanders Condemn US Military Tactics,” The Age(Melbourne), April 12, 2004
“Nowhere had any new medical material arrived since the end of the war. The medical material, already outdated, broken down or malfunctioning after twelve years of embargo, had further deteriorated over the past year. In places where looting had taken place, there is now less material than before, as in Baghdad’s rehabilitation centre, which is supposed to provide the entire country of prostheses. Or as in the burns section of the Al Nour Hospital, where there is no possibility of sterile treatment, as a result of which all patients with major burns are doomed to die. Or as in the intensive care unit of the Kadhemya Hospital—which has 8 of the 16 high intensive care beds for Baghdad—, where only three respiration machines are functioning.” — Dr. Geert Van Moorter, June 28, 2004, quoted in “One Year After the Fall of Baghdad: How Healthy Is Iraq?,” Health-Now.com, April 28, 2004
“[Only] 10 percent of the people [at Guantánamo] . . . are really dangerous.” — Abdurahman Khadr, April 21, 2004, commenting on prisoners that he observed while allowing himself to be a captive to spy for the American government during Frontline’s documentary Son of Al Qaeda (2004)
“When you surround a city, you bomb the city, when people cannot go to hospital, what name do you have for that? And you, if you have enemies there, this is exactly what they want you to do, to alienate more people so that more people support them rather than you. . . Collective punishment is certainly unacceptable and the siege of the city is absolutely unacceptable.” — Lakhdar Brahimi, Special UN Representative, April 25, 2004, commenting on the American siege and attack on Falluja, quoted in “U.N. Special Advisor Lakhar Brahimi on the Political Situation in Iraq,” U.N. Observer and Special Report, April 15, 2004
“A state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens.” — Sandra Day O’Connor, June 28, 2004, in Hamdi v Rumsfeld
“The memoranda written by Bush administration lawyers on how prisoners of the ‘war on terror’ . . . read like the advice of a mob lawyer to a mafia don on how to skirt the law and stay out of prison.” — Anthony Lewis, “Making Torture Legal,” New York Review of Books, July 15, 2004
“[P]risoners would be strapped into heavy jackets, similar to straightjackets, with their arms locked behind them and their legs straddled by straps. Goggles were placed over their eyes and their heads were covered with a hood. The prisoner was then led at midday into what looked like a narrow fenced-in dog run– . . . The restraints forced him to move, if he chose to move, on his knees, bent over at a forty-five degree angle. Most prisoners just sat and suffered in the heat.” — paraphrase of Pentagon adviser’s description by Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command (2004), pp. 11-12
“I’ve indicated that it [the American decision to invade Iraq] was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, and from the charter point of view it was illegal.” — former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, September 15, 2004, quoted in MacAskill and Borger, “Iraq War Was Illegal and Breached UN Charter, Says Annan,” Guardian, September 16, 2004
“When I volunteered to assist with this process and was assigned to this office, I expected there would at least be a minimal effort to establish a fair process and diligently prepare cases against significant accused. Instead, I find a half-hearted and disorganized effort by a skeleton group of relatively inexperienced attorneys to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged.” — Captain John Carr, explaining why he refused to serve as prosecutor at Guantánamo, quoted in Sales, “Leaked Emails Claim Guantánamo Trials Rigged” ABCNewsOnline.com, August 1, 2005
“I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is America.” — Captain Ian Fishback, September 16, 2005, commenting with displeasure on the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo in a letter of Senator John McCain, quoted in Rowley, “Fishback,” Time, April 30, 2006
“Neither wars nor detention camps are necessary in the fight against Islamic terrorism.” — Pedro Rubira, September 26, 2005, commenting on the guilty verdict in a Spanish court that convicted 18 terrorists, including a member of al-Qaeda who was involved in the 9/11 plot, quoted in Green, “Sept. 11 Figure Is Convicted in Spain,” Washington Post, September 27, 2005
“I don’t consider this place as a commission. . . . This is not a commision, this is a con-mission, is a mission to con the world . . . You can execute me tomorrow, but don’t try and cheat the world of what this really is. . . . You start playing around with con-missions, you start here, then tomorrrow we have another one in Canada, and then the next day have another in Australia, and the next day have it somewhere, another place, where certain non-citizens have to obey some rule that just got made up.” — Binyan Mohamed, November 2005, addressing the military tribunal at Guantánamo during his arraingment, November 2005, as quoted in Smith, Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side (2007), pp. 114-115
“[Terrorists are] the quintessence of evil. . . . But it’s not about them; it’s about us. This battle we’re in is about the things we stand for and believe in and practice. And that is an observance of human rights, no matter how terrible our adversaries may be.” — Senator John McCain, November 13, 2005, quoted in Klug, “McCain: Torture Ban Protects U.S. Image,”Washington Post, November 14, 2005
“The government is trying to keep the secrecy of the proceeding a secret itself.” — Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, commenting on proceedings at Guantanamo, October 11, 2007, quoted in Glaberson, “Witness Names to Be Withheld From Detainee,” New York Times, December 1, 2007
“[Violence against civilians is a] ‘daily phenomenon’ [by many troops in the American-led coalition who] do not respect the Iraqi people. . . . They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion. . . This is completely unacceptable.” — Nouri al-Maliki, June 1, 2006, quoted in Oppel, “Iraqi Assails U.S. for Strikes on Civilians,” New York Times, June 2, 2006
“I feel that we have been lied to and betrayed by this administration. . . . It is the duty, the obligation of every soldier, and specifically the officers, to evaluate the legality, the truth behind every order — including the order to go to war. . . . [The]war in Iraq violates our democratic system of checks and balances. . . . It usurps international treaties and conventions that by virtue of the Constitution become American law. The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of the Iraqi people with only limited accountability is not only a terrible moral injustice, but a contradiction to the Army’s own Law of Land Warfare. My participation would make me party to war crimes.” — First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, June 6, 2006, quoted in Bernton, “Officer at Fort Lewis Calls Iraq War Illegal, Refuses Order to Go,” Seattle Times, June 7, 2006
“Fraud, theft, cost mischarging, product substitution, bribery, kickbacks, gratuities, bid rigging, conflicts of interest, public corruption, computer crime, embezzlement, and false claims.” — Eric Herring & Glen Rangwala, characterizing the Coalition Provisional Authority, as administered by J. Paul Bremer III, Iraq in Fragments (2006), p. 257
“Common Article 3 [of the Geneva Conventions] obviously tolerates a great degree offlexibility in trying individuals captured during armed conflict; its requirements are general ones, crafted toaccommodate a wide variety of legal systems. But requirements they are nonetheless. The commission that the President has convened to try Hamdan does not meet those requirements.” — John Paul Stevens, June 29, 2006, Hamdan v Rumsfeld (2006)
“Within a few weeks of the invasion and occupation, . . . there was no overlooking the tide of carpetbaggers, con men and camp followers that descended on Baghdad like a plague of locusts.” — Ali Allawi, former Iraq Minister of Finance, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (2007), p. 11
“One Guantánamo lunch was slimy boiled tinned okra, dry undercooked rice and some rancid fish. . . . One day . . . I tried the mashed tinned potatoes, tinned peas and kidney beans, washed down with iced tea. It was revolting.” — Clive Stafford Smith, commenting on meals shared with prisoners in Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side (2007), p. 185
“Gonzales’s memo [characterizing the Geneva Conventions as obsolete] has been criticized as a conspiracy to commit a war crime.” — Jack Goldsmith, The Terror Presidency (2007), p. 68
“What were purported to be specific statements of fact lacked even the most fundamental earmarks of objectively credible evidence.” — Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Abraham, former government prosecutor at Guantánamo, June 14, 2007, quoted in Glaberson, “Reserve Officer Criticizes Process of Identifying ‘Enemy Combatants’ at Guantánamo,” New York Times, June 23, 2007
“The proposed new system [of Combatant Status Review Tribunals] has no redeeming features whatsoever. It remains inherently unfair and contrary to the rule of law.” — statement by Tim Bugg, President, Law Council of Australia, September 8, 2006
“The very real prospect of people being condemned to death and executed by such a system is truly ‘Kafkaesque’.” — Lex Lasry, QC, observer at a meeting of the Law Council of Australia, July 24, 2007, quoted in “Haneef Case a Farce, Like Hicks: Law Council,” news.com.au, July 24, 2007
“We are designing a process after the fact to convict people we have already basically determined are guilty. . . . And that is an absolute affront to the rule of law.” — Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, quoted by Temple-Raston, “New Appeals Court Mulls ‘Enemy Combatant’ Labels,” npr.com, August 24, 2007
“We would careen around corners, jump road dividers, reach speeds in excess of 100 mph and often cross over to the wrong side of the road [while] . . . honking at, cutting off, pelting with water bottles (a favorite tactic) and menacing with weapons anyone in their way. . . . As we approached at typical breakneck speed, the Blackwater driver honked furiously and motioned to the side, as if they should pull over. The kids in the back seat looked back in horror, mouths agape at the sight of the heavily armored Suburbans driven by large, armed men in dark sunglasses. The poor Iraqi driver frantically searched for a means of escape, but there was none. So the lead Blackwater vehicle smashed heedlessly into the car, pushing it into the barrier. We zoomed by too quickly to notice if anyone was hurt.. . . Well, if they weren’t terrorists before, they certainly are now!” — Janessa Gans, describing her experiences as an embedded journalist in “Guards Who Hurt Us,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 2007
“The impunity of a criminal government is always intolerable. That the US is the hyperpower of the moment and especially that it is a democracy makes the impunity of Donald Rumsfield even more unbearable than that of an Hissène Habré or a Radovan Karadzic.” — Jean-Pierre Dubois, President, La Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme, quoted in “Donald Rumsfeld Charged with Torture During Trip to France,” fidh.org, October 26, 2007
“This is a process that is not designed to be fair, it is designed to produce convictions and it is designed around a specific set of cases for the government to convince people based on evidence they couldn’t use to convict them in any other court. That is why we have military commissions and so I don’t expect a fair trial for Omar Khadr.” — Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, November 8, 2007, quoted on radio program hosted by Goodman & Gonzales, democracynow.org, November 9, 2007
“Instead of a presumption of innocence and of a public trial, . . . we start with a presumption of guilt and a secret trial.” — Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, November 30, 2007, quoted on radio program hosted by Goodman & Gonzales, democracynow.org, December 3, 2007
“I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system . . . I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively. . . . There’s always been this mind-set that if we can knock a few of these [cases] off and just get the 9/11 suspects into the courtroom, whoever wins the election is not going to be able to stop it.” — Colonel Morris Davis, December 10, 2007, explaining why he resigned from the role of prosecutor at Guantánamo, quoted in Tuttle, “Rigged Trials at Gitmo,” The Nation, February 20, 2008
“[T]orture of enemy captives by U.S. military personnel or contractors . . . is evidence of a sick mind and an uncivilized chain of command.” — Theodore Sorensen, “No Torture. No Exceptions,” Washington Monthly, January 8, 2008
“The American forces, when they entered, . . . protected all the oil wells . . . but . . . paid no attention to Iraq’s heritage.” — Abdul Zahra Talaqani, media director for the Iraqi Ministry for Tourism and Archaeology, January 20, 2008, quoted in Zavis, “‘Ancient Civilization … Broken to Pieces’,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2008
“Since I don’t know any lawyer, how can I have them represent me? . . . I don’t know a lawyer. . . . I only know I want someone to be just with me. Yes, I want someone to represent me, but in a lawful manner, in a lawful court. . . . I should be given freedom so that I can find a lawyer.” — Mohammad Jawad, March 20, 2008, statement before a judge at Guantánamo before his request for an attorney was denied, quoted in Reidy, “Watching Jawad,” Human Rights Watch, March 12, 2008
“[I]ndiscriminate tactics had become the norm.” — Thomas Smith, “Protecting Civilians . . . or Soldiers? Humanitarian
Law and the Economy of Risk in Iraq,” International Studies Perspectives, May 2008, p. 159, summarizing the judgment of Lieutenant Colonel Paul Ware on the Haditha massacre of November 19, 2005
“The conditions under which [Guantánamo prisoner] Mr. Khadr was held and was liable for prosecution were illegal under both U.S. and international law.” — Supreme Court of Canada, Canada v Khadr, May 23, 2008
“President Bush bears ultimate responsibility for the invasion of Iraq. He made the decision to invade, and he signed off on a strategy for selling the war that was less than candid and honest.” -– Scott McLellan, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception (2008), p. 146
“There was a deliberate plot to abuse the procedures so they could railroad [Canadian citizen Maher] Arar to Syria, where they knew he would be tortured.” –- Jerold Nadler, Member of Congress, June 5, 2008, quoted in legitgov.org, June 7, 2008
“If the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be . . . severe.” — Vincent Bugliosi, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (2008), p.82
“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether [they] will be held to account.” -– Major General Antonio Taguba (retired), Preface to Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by the US, June 2008
