Time Magazine has just posted a, excuse the term, bombshell of a story.
According to the article, Germany's top prosecutor will file the papers next week to charge Rumsfeld "long with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
More details below...
The plaintiffs are 11 Iraqis and at least one Saudi -- Mohammad al-Qahtani (the "20th hijacker").
Why Now?
The article gives two reasons. First, because Rumsfeld is no longer SecDef, he will no longer have diplomatic immunity (frankly, I'm not sure if this is true or not).
Second, the plaintiffs say that when they attempted to prosecute in the past, they were told that the US was dealing with issue, and it hasn't.
Why Germany?
German laws allow for "universal jurisdiction" when it comes to war crimes. In other words, the crimes do not need to have occurred in Germany to be prosecuted in Germany.
In fact, the author references a 2004 case in Germany which also attempted to prosecute Rumsfeld. That case was eventually dropped after pressure came from the Bush administration.
I'm not sure if this will lead to anything or not. But one thing is clear: the foundation that supported this corrupt, unethical and immoral government has cracked, and the world sees those cracks.
Whether this case comes to fruition or not, their house of cards is about to tumble.