[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 51 (Monday, March 31, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4577-S4579]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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SENATE RESOLUTION 101--CALLING FOR THE PROSECUTION OF IRAQIS AND THEIR 
           SUPPORTERS FOR WAR CRIMES, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

  Mr. SPECTER submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 101

       Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--

[[Page S4578]]

       (1) the governments of the United States, the United 
     Kingdom, and other nations comprising the coalition 
     conducting Operation Iraqi Freedom should prosecute by trial 
     by tribunal each person in the Government of Iraq, each 
     person in the armed forces of Iraq, and any other person, 
     regardless of nationality, who orders, directs, solicits, 
     procures, coordinates, participates in, or supports acts in 
     violation of the international law of armed conflict 
     (including the aspects of such law known as the Hague and 
     Geneva Conventions) that are directed at members of the armed 
     forces of the coalition nations or at the people of Iraq or 
     any other nation;
       (2) in the determination of appropriate persons to be 
     charged and tried by such tribunal on the basis of command 
     responsibility for any violation, consideration should be 
     given to identifying responsible persons throughout the full 
     range of the chain command, and not only persons within 
     formal chains of command of the government and armed forces 
     of Iraq, but also persons integral to any informal link by 
     which a person in the government of Iraq or the armed forces 
     of Iraq, or any other person, directs paramilitary, 
     political, or guerrilla forces;
       (3) in the determination of appropriate persons to be 
     charged and tried by such tribunal, consideration should also 
     be given to identifying persons who use political position or 
     mass media in any of the violations; and
       (4) in the determination of the violations of the 
     international law of armed conflict to be tried by the 
     tribunal, particular attention should be given to acts in the 
     nature of those that, as of the date of this resolution, have 
     already been committed by Iraqi directed forces, such as--
       (A) the abuse of places protected from military attack 
     under international law, such as the use of mosques and 
     hospitals as military headquarters or for other military 
     purposes;
       (B) the ruse by which Iraqi combatants wear civilian 
     clothing instead of, or over, uniforms to conceal their 
     status as combatants and, while so clothed, attack coalition 
     forces;
       (C) the ruse by which Iraqi combatants feign surrender to 
     coalition forces to gain advantage used by the Iraqi 
     combatants to attack personnel of the coalition forces;
       (D) the use of civilians or other persons protected under 
     international law as human shields for Iraqi combatants on 
     the battlefield;
       (E) assault, murder, kidnapping, or torture of civilians or 
     other persons protected under international law in order to 
     terrorize those persons or others or to prevent them from 
     gaining the protection of coalition forces;
       (F) abuse, torture, assault, or murder of personnel of 
     coalition forces entitled to treatment as prisoners of war or 
     of civilians entitled to a protected status under 
     international law; and
       (G) recruitment or encouragement of non-Iraqi foreign 
     nationals to engage in violations of the international law of 
     armed conflict.

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I was alarmed over the past weekend to 
note the suicide bombing which was perpetrated on Saturday where four 
United States soldiers in the 3rd Infantry Division were murdered by a 
suicide car bomb, with a bomber driving a taxi filled with explosives 
to a highway checkpoint in central Iraq. This is the first such attack 
on American troops in this war, a war in which Iraqi forces have been 
accused of dressing as civilians and employing so-called human shields.
  In an interview which appeared on ABC Television on Sunday, March 
30th, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz stated that this was to be the 
policy of Iraq. This statement was in response to a question by ABC 
News correspondent Richard Engel, a question related to the comment by 
the Vice President of Iraq the preceding day, Saturday, March 29th, and 
then again by a Defense Ministry spokesman on March 30th, that Iraq is 
``welcoming the use of [such] suicide attacks.''
  I am today introducing a resolution which condemns this practice as a 
war crime, to put the government of Iraq on notice that the United 
States, Great Britain, and coalition forces will be prosecuting these 
atrocities as war crimes. Human Rights Watch commented on this matter, 
condemned the act in a press release issued just today, saying: 
``Feigning civilian or noncombatant status to deceive the enemy is a 
violation of the laws of war. . . .''
  On March 29, that is last Saturday, at a U.S. military roadblock near 
Najaf, an Iraqi noncommissioned officer, reportedly posing as a taxi 
driver, detonated a car bomb that killed him and four U.S. soldiers. 
Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said in a Baghdad news 
conference that such attacks would become ``routine military policy.'' 
The executive director of the Human Rights Watch, Mr. Kenneth Roth, 
said: ``When combatants disguise themselves as civilians or 
surrendering soldiers, that is a serious violation of the laws of war. 
Any such blurring of the line between combatant and noncombatant puts 
all Iraqis at greater risk.''
  International law prohibits attacking, killing, injuring, capturing, 
or deceiving the enemy by resorting to what is called perfidy. A 
``perfidious attack'' is one launched by combatants who have led 
opposing forces to believe that the attackers are really noncombatants. 
Acts of perfidy include pretending to be a civilian who cannot be 
attacked, or feigning surrender. Surrendering soldiers cannot be 
attacked, so it is perfidious to use that protected status to attack as 
the opposing forces let down their guard as they try to take the 
``surrendering'' soldiers into custody.
  Now, this technique, this tactic, has been sanctioned, as noted, at 
the highest level of the Iraqi government by the Vice President of Iraq 
and by Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. Minister Aziz has been the 
leading Iraqi spokesman for more than a decade, going back, actually, 
before the gulf war in 1991. When Minister Aziz speaks, there is no 
doubt that he is speaking at the highest level of the Iraqi government.
  The Iraqi government awarded the suicide bomber two posthumous medals 
and the Vice President said the suicide attacks will become routine 
military policy in Iraq and in the United States unless the Bush 
administration abandons the (then) 10-day-old war and pulls back its 
troops.
  The interview by ABC TV news correspondent Richard Engel went on to 
question Deputy Prime Minister Aziz about the nature of such attacks in 
the future, and Minister Aziz commented: ``There will be others. 
Iraqis, Arabs, maybe Muslims, yes. We welcome them.''
  Minister Aziz took pride in pointing out: ``[T]he first one who did 
it was an Iraqi. He was not a foreigner.''
  It is my view that this is one of a series of acts by the Iraqi 
Government in violation of the laws of war itemized in the Hague and 
Geneva Conventions, and that more and varied types of atrocities may be 
expected by the desperate Iraqi Government.
  That is why I have prepared today this resolution which calls upon:

       . . . the governments of the United States, the United 
     Kingdom, and other nations comprising the coalition 
     conducting Operation Iraqi Freedom [to] prosecute by trial by 
     tribunal each person in the Government of Iraq, each person 
     in the armed forces of Iraq, and any other person, regardless 
     of nationality, who orders, directs, solicits, procures, 
     coordinates, participates in, or supports acts in violation 
     of the international law of armed conflict (including the 
     aspects of such law known as the Hague and Geneva 
     Conventions) . . . .

  The resolution specifies a series of circumstances where there is:

       . . . abuse of places protected from military attack under 
     international law, such as the use of mosques and hospitals 
     as military headquarters or for other military purposes;
       . . . the ruse by which Iraqi combatants wear civilian 
     clothing instead of, or over, uniforms to conceal their 
     status as combatants and, while so clothed, attack coalition 
     forces;
       . . . the ruse by which Iraqi combatants feign surrender to 
     coalition forces to gain advantage used by the Iraqi 
     combatants to attack personnel of the coalition forces;
       . . . the use of civilians or other persons protected under 
     international law as human shields for Iraqi combatants on 
     the battlefield;
       . . . assault, murder, kidnapping, or torture of civilians 
     or other persons protected under international law in order 
     to terrorize those persons or others or to prevent them from 
     gaining the protection of coalition forces;
       . . . abuse, torture, assault, or murder of personnel of 
     coalition forces entitled to treatment as prisoners of war or 
     of civilians entitled to a protected status under 
     international law; and
       . . . recruitment or encouragement of non-Iraqi foreign 
     nationals to engage in violations of the international law of 
     armed conflict.

  We are saying what has occurred in Iraq today are the actions of a 
desperate nation.
  I believe it is very important that the upper echelon of the Iraqi 
Government, people such as the Vice President, people such as Deputy 
Prime Minister Aziz, be put on notice that these acts in violation of 
The Hague and Geneva Conventions will be dealt with very forcefully by 
a tribunal which is yet to be established.

[[Page S4579]]

  I do not specify at this time the kind of tribunal. That will require 
some further analysis. It could be a military tribunal to try those 
offenses where the victims are soldiers of the U.S. Army, or of the 
British Army, or soldiers of the coalition forces.
  It might be an international tribunal such as that which was 
established for the former Yugoslavia, or Rwanda.
  It is worth noting, and the Iraqi officials ought to be watching, 
what has happened at The Hague and what happened in Rwanda. The former 
head of state of Rwanda is now serving a life sentence--notwithstanding 
that he was the head of state of Rwanda--for crimes against humanity. 
In a well-publicized case, former Yugoslavian President Milosevic is 
now on trial in The Hague for violations of international law and 
crimes against humanity. Many have been sentenced for criminal conduct, 
for violations of international law in Bosnia and in Kosovo. So at this 
early stage I believe it is important that the word go out to the Iraqi 
high command and to those who follow orders of the Iraqi high command 
that they will be prosecuted as war criminals.

  It is not a defense that someone says that he or she is operating 
under an order from a superior officer. In a very celebrated case in 
World War I, a German U-boat sank an Allied ship. As it went down, 
those in lifeboats were machinegunned by the submarine, which had 
surfaced. The perpetrator of the machinegunning entered a defense that 
the machinegunner was operating under superior's orders. That was 
soundly rejected. So the principle has been established as a matter of 
international law that it is no defense to say a person operates under 
superior's orders.
  Of course, it is not a defense at all for ranking officials such as 
the Iraqi Vice President and the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, who know 
better, who are engaging in these violations of international law. 
Those who carry out the orders of these Iraqis ought to be on notice, 
too, that these matters will not be over when we win the war, when the 
war stops, because these individuals will be pursued in trials just as 
the head of state of Rwanda was pursued and is serving a life sentence; 
just as former President Milosevic is being pursued and prosecuted; as 
so many others are being pursued.
  This word ought to go out in a very forceful way to the Iraqis that 
this conduct in violation of international law will not be tolerated.
  In 1998 I introduced S. Con. Res. 78 calling for a war crimes 
tribunal to try Saddam Hussein as a war criminal. On March 13, 1998, 
that was passed unanimously, 93 to nothing, by the Senate. So there is 
a demonstrated interest on the part of this body in acting very 
forcefully to give notice to, not only Saddam Hussein, but other Iraqi 
officials and those who carry out their orders that they will be 
prosecuted as war criminals if they continue to violate international 
law.

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