Federal court gives "early Christmas present" to Bush officials, immunizing them from civil inquiry filed by Comar Law regarding Iraq War

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Late Friday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against George W. Bush and other government officials regarding the Iraq War, and immunized them from further proceedings.

"This is an early Christmas present to former Bush Administration officials," Inder Comar of Comar Law said. Comar brought the claim on behalf of an Iraqi refugee and single mother, Sundus Shaker Saleh. "This was a serious attempt to hold US leaders accountable under laws set down at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. I am very disappointed at the outcome."

The tribunal at Nuremberg, established after World War II, declared aggression the "supreme international crime" and convicted German leaders of waging illegal wars. 

The lawsuit alleged that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz committed aggression in planning and waging the Iraq War. Saleh claimed that these officials used the fear of 9/11 to mislead the American public into supporting a war against Iraq and issued knowingly false statements that Iraq was in league with Al-Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction, when none of those things were true. 

"The decision guts Nuremberg," Comar said. "Nuremberg said that domestic immunity was no defense to a claim of international aggression. This Court has said the opposite."

The court's ruling comes in the wake of the Senate report regarding the use of torture by the CIA. That report confirmed that a confession extracted from the torture of Ibn Shaykh al-Libi was used to support the case for war.

Comar, a corporate attorney who works with startups and venture funds, filed the complaint pro bono in March 2013.

In August 2013, Obama's Department of Justice requested that the lawsuit be dismissed pursuant to the Westfall Act, a federal law that immunizes any government official from a civil lawsuit if that official was acting "within the scope of his office or employment." Judge Jon S. Tigar, an Obama appointee, ruled that the defendants were shielded by the Westfall Act regardless of the allegations made in the Complaint.

The case is Saleh v. Bush (N.D. Cal. Mar. 13, 2013, No. C 13 1124 JST). The opinion can be found at http://witnessiraq.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/12-19-14-Order.pdf. Other court filings and updates can be found at http://witnessiraq.com.

Contact:
Inder Comar
[email protected]

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SOURCE Comar Law

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