Any idea on whether the International court may press charges on Bush or his administrators? Maybe not right now, but years from now?

He'd have to do something illegal first.

Common myths: He stole the election. He knowingly lied (not under oath). The war in Iraq is illegal. He has turned America into a police state. He masterminded 9/11. He caused Hurricane Katrina.

All very frightening at first until you realize that if Bill couldn't get away with lying about his extramarital affairs and that very famous blow-job, Bush DEFINITELY couldn't get away with any of the above.

Ah but the kicker is he didn't get away with any of his lies. He and his top officials told over 900 lies and exagerations just in the run-up to the Iraq war alone. ( <link> ) But with a Republican controlled House and Senate for the first six years of his presidency and a very slim Democratic majority in both Houses the last two any Resolution of Impeachment that was presented for discussion had no chance of passing.

Not that any of that makes any difference. I have come to the conclusion that the media mogols, business and political "leaders" of this country (be they Republican, Democrat or something else) have a far greater agenda at work and Iraq is just a small piece in a much larger puzzle.

I think international prosecutors would start with extraordinary rendition (violation of sovereignty, extradition treaties, due process), Gauntanamo (habeas corpus, Geneva Convention), and torture. Henry Kissinger's international travel is restricted for fear of prosecution, as documented by Slate's C. Htchens <link> I don't believe the crimes committed by this administration are of the same scale as were committed in Kissinger's time, but they are crimes, and the fear of persecution will linger. And as Pinochet discovered, retroactive immunity may be insufficient protection.

I'm not saying that a politician doesn't lie...and I'm talking about real lying here, because they all tell real direct lies. But, that claim about 900 lies has already been debunked as a biased smear and the very definition of the word lie comes into question when used to describe the claims of George Bush.

Being wrong, or unable to prove your case does not qualify as lying. Like the entire WMD issue...Chris Hitchens kind of argues it better than I could. <link>

Hitchens' arguement is classic misdirection. The issue is that the USA did not have any credible evidence of its own on the Niger Yellow-cake issue and instead pointed to what someone else was saying about it - full well knowing that the credibility of that claim was discreditted as well. This is no different than the approach The National Enquirer uses to talk about aliens, Bill Clinton used when he redefined "sexual relations" to exclude fellatio or when he narrowly defined "is" to apply to only the relative present (and before you make the claim that WJC lied under oath - under Arkansas law - which was the applicable law, a deposition oath is only criminally binding if the case goes to trial, which it never did)

Given that the AUMF Section 3(a)1 requires Iraq to have been a continuing threat to the national security of the USA, this sort of lie is a violation of US law. But of course that won't be ever acted on.

So that leaves the original question - international law being used to indict Bush. And herein Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Pace, Tenet, Gonzalez, Ashcroft and others are potentially in trouble. The Convention Against Torture Section 5(2) states

Each State Party shall likewise take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over such offences in cases where the alleged offender is present in any territory under its jurisdiction and it does not extradite him pursuant to article 8 to any of the States mentioned in paragraph I of this article.

Which in essence means that any signatory nation can indict a violator of the CAT, and if it doesn't and another signatory does and petitions for extradition, then that person has to be extradicted. This is what happened to Pinochet when he left Chile for medical treatment in London.

So that means that nations that are signatories to the CAT which has had citizens in Gitmo, may very well end up with a case filed agaisnt many in the GWB administration. And the governments may do this to get the US to honor the Alien Torts Act.

Now for GWB, who hadn't even been to Europe before becoming POTUS, this isn't going to be a big restriction. But for Rice, Powell, and many of the rest, it potentially cripples their future careers because they may very well be indicted for Crimes Against Humanity.

Degs for once I'm proud of you. The link you provided " Convention Against Torture " is an excellent link. Too bad you never take the time to read the whole link. If you click on " Declarations and Reservations", scroll down to " United States of America " you would of seen were the good ole US is using the 5th, 8th and/or the 14th Amendments to side step this artical. In fact most of the countries that ratified this artical are also side stepping it. Do you really think that the members of the UN that have vetoing powers would let this happen? All it would do is alow the UN to go after their leaders. I'm afraid it's just wishful thinking on your part.

By the way, didn't arkansas disbar Clinton. And also thank you for letting me know that I can lie to a grand jury.