War-crimes probe of Rumsfeld sought

MIAMI — Civil liberties lawyers turned to a German prosecutor Tuesday in their latest quest to open a war-crimes investigation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other architects of detention policy at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq.

The lawyers went overseas with their 380-page complaint application, hoping that Rumsfeld's resignation will help their case, which alleges that as secretary of defense he oversaw policies that condoned torture.

The Pentagon replied that the complaint was without merit, saying it has already investigated and dealt with any detainee abuse allegations appropriately.

The complaint, championed by the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, also names other still-active members of the Bush administration — notably Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.

It includes an affidavit from a former U.S. Army brigadier general, Janis Karpinski, who claims she was unfairly blamed for letting Military Police run amok at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"I am willing to testify in a German criminal investigation because of the prisoner abuses in Abu Ghraib and the release of intentionally misleading information ... when it was clear the knowledge and responsibility goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and to the vice president, Dick Cheney," Karpinski wrote in the document released Tuesday in Berlin.

The complaint was filed on behalf of 12 present and former U.S.-held captives at the Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo detention center and argues that the Bush administration authorized policies and interrogation techniques that led to their torture.

The Pentagon has long defended its detention and interrogation policies as humane, war-on-terror necessities — and said scattered cases of abuse were investigated, and dealt with internally, by commanders.

"We have no reason to believe that the suit has merit," said Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith.

The Center for Constitutional Rights failed in a 2004 bid to get a German investigation. But the center's President Michael Ratner cited several key changes:

• Rumsfeld's resignation means he will be a private citizen soon, stripping him of any customary European immunity as a defense minister;