A lawsuit accusing U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks of committing war crimes in Iraq was filed in a Belgian court Wednesday in a move likely to exacerbate tensions between Brussels and Washington.
Belgian lawyer Jan Fermon submitted the case against Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, on behalf of the families of 19 civilian victims of the military campaign to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The suit also cites Col. Bryan McCoy, who Fermon says gave U.S. troops orders to fire on ambulances and innocent civilians in Baghdad.
Fermon, who is standing for a far-left party in Sunday's general election in Belgium, said U.S. troops were guilty of bombing civilian areas, targeting the media, using cluster bombs against non-military targets, firing at medical personnel and turning a blind eye to looting.
"This is not about collateral damage done by lawful military activity," Fermon told reporters. "There was a pattern of deliberately targeting civilians and that is a war crime."
Fermon's case rests largely on evidence from two Belgian doctors working in Iraq during the conflict. One of the doctors, Geert van Moorter, told a news conference in Brussels, "In the first days when American troops entered Baghdad, they shot at everything that moved ... they were given a license to kill."
Under a controversial Belgian law, war crimes may be tried in Brussels if the country where they were committed is not a functioning democracy or if they cannot be dealt with by the International Criminal Court. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have both previously been cited under the law, straining relations between Belgium and Israel and the United States.
Speaking in Brussels Tuesday, U.S. Gen. Richard Myers said Belgium -- the seat of both NATO and the European Union -- might become a "no-go zone" for senior U.S. officials if Franks was called to court. "It's looked upon by the U.S. government as a very, very serious situation ... It is serious and it could clearly have an impact on where we gather," said Myers, who as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff holds the highest military position in U.S. government. However, the chances of the Brussels public prosecutor giving the green light to open proceedings against Franks appear slim after the so-called "universal competence" law was last month watered down by Belgian legislators.
Belgian politicians, keen to patch up relations with Washington after the recent show-down over Iraq, are also fiercely opposed to the 1993 law being used for political ends. Describing the Franks suit as an "abuse of the law," Foreign Minister Louis Michel told Flemish radio: "I want to stress that America is a democracy, that America is capable of handling such complaints and that it would be very pretentious for us to do it in their place." –
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