International Public Tribunal to bring Bush administration's policy to book

The International Public Tribunal intends to bring to book George Bush and his administration for the war in Iraq.

The Tribunal's session is due on April 14-17 in Brussels, the secretariat of the BRussels Tribunal, which has been named and will be held on the analogy with the famous Russel Tribunal.

It was founded in 1966 by the world famous British scientist and public figure Bertrand Russel to probe into military crimes. In 1967, two sessions of the Russel Tribunal were held in Stockholm and Roskild (the Netherlands) where testimony was heard on the Vietnam war. Government representatives of the United States ignored the invitations to the hearings.

After the hearings, where US soldiers and Vietnamese civilians gave testimony together with scientists and journalists, the Tribunal concluded that political connivance at the unfair war was unacceptable.

The session of the International Public Tribunal for Iraq will be chaired by Professor Francois Houtard of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve. The main people accused of launching the Iraq war are US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Richard Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

The list of the BRussels Tribunal members includes former US Attorney General Ramsy Clark, economist Shamir Amin, actor Tom Barry and many other representatives of the world intellectual and artistic elite.