As US president, George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the grounds that the country had weapons of mass destruction. They were never found, but Bush was not held responsible for that: he managed to get re-elected in 2004 and today, at 75, lives the quiet routine of a former president.
Writer Terry Jastrow sought to imagine what would happen if the former American leader were tried in court for the mistakes and consequences of that war, which left hundreds of thousands dead.
A survey by the Associated Press news agency found at least 110,000 deaths, but other entities say the total number could be much higher, as the years of economic and social chaos that followed made life in Iraq very difficult, even if indirectly, another thousands of deaths.
In the book “The Trial of George W. Bush” (the trial of George W. Bush, in free translation), released in the US, Jastrow mixes reality and fiction to debate what that trial would be like. In the plot, the American is captured while playing golf in Scotland and taken to a cell in The Hague, Netherlands, home of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The US tries to invade the court to rescue him, without success, and the trial begins, with space for the prosecution and defense to present their arguments.
In Jastrow’s narrative, Bush’s lawyers first try to discredit the ICC by claiming that US citizens cannot be tried there because the country does not recognize their authority. Washington withdrew from the 1998 Rome Statute, which paved the way for the installation of the court in 2002.
The former president’s defense also alleges that he waged the war with the aim of protecting American citizens and US allies such as Israel. According to lawyers, that would be Bush’s primary mission as US president, a duty he could not be punished for.
Advocates further argue that the loss of life during the conflict was sad but justifiable given the larger goal of making the world safer.
The prosecution says that, although Saddam Hussein (1937-2006) was a dictator, there was no evidence that he was linked to the terrorists behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, and that reports from the US intelligence itself pointed out that Iraq did not pose a threat.
Prosecutors point out that the US invasion has led the country in the Middle East to years of instability, with countless civilian deaths, including by US patrols, in addition to scenes of humiliation and torture, such as those that took place in the Abu Ghraib prison, which Iraqis were submitted.
In the work, Jastrow intersperses the arguments as if in a game, as he recalls the details of the invasion of Iraq and explains how the ICC works. Despite the impartial tone, the author makes it clear that he defends Bush’s accountability for what happened in Iraq, and believes that this would help to prevent future wars.
“When the Vietnam War was raging in the late 1960s, I was a teenager and I thought the US should never have been in it,” Jastrow tells sheet. “After Bush waged his war on Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and cost trillions of dollars, I thought ‘what could stop this madness?’ And I wrote the book.”
Jastrow, 73, made a first version of the work in 2007 and was able to publish the material this year, through the publisher Square One. He made a career in TV and served for decades as producer and broadcast director of major events.
On his resume is, for example, the opening ceremony of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. In recent years, he began writing books. Its style, direct and focused on the dialogues, gives the reader the feeling of watching a classic judgment movie.
“If a leader of a power suspected of war crimes is arrested and brought to trial, many more arrests and trials would follow,” he says. He recalls that, until today, the ICC has only tried dictators from African countries and the Balkan region.
The author has done extensive research on the rules of the Court in The Hague, but says he does not know how to assess whether national leaders could be prosecuted in the future for the deaths caused by the mismanagement of the Covid crisis.
“I can’t answer whether the rules defined by the ICC, many of them designed for war crimes, could be applied to a pandemic. But it’s an interesting question.”
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, was denounced to the ICC for the indictment of crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide against indigenous peoples in 2019, and there is debate whether the accusations that errors in the management of the pandemic, such as defending medicines have proven ineffective against Covid-19, could generate a new indictment against him in international court.
Although there is no lawsuit against the Brazilian leader now, however, actions against him or against other leaders in the future are not ruled out.
“International criminal law has no statute of limitations. This means that a person suspected of a crime is liable to liability until the day they die,” explains Jastrow. “George W. Bush is 75 years old now. Let’s say he lives another 10 or 15 years. He’s still subject to arrest and trial in The Hague. So he’s not a free man, and he’s subject to trial and imprisoned for the rest of his life.”
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