[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16135]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         WAR CRIMES IN BELGIUM

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, should the United States allow its military 
and political leaders like General Tommy Franks, Colin Powell and Vice 
President Cheney to be tried for war crimes in Belgium? Some 
bureaucrats in Belgium would like to think so. Trying to be a player on 
the world stage, it adopted a universal jurisdiction law supposedly 
giving Belgian courts jurisdiction over war crimes committed anywhere 
in the world. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld did the right thing by saying 
we would not spend taxpayer money to support the new NATO headquarters 
in a country that could prosecute our soldiers and leaders. Maybe it is 
time that we even think of moving the NATO headquarters to a more 
friendly country.
  Belgium should not turn its legal system into a platform for divisive 
politicized lawsuits against her own NATO allies. No civilian or 
military leader could go to Brussels without fear of harassment from 
Belgium's courts enforcing spurious charges against them. The 
bureaucrats in Brussels and around the world who think they can wield 
unlimited global judicial power without being elected by anyone should 
be stopped.

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