Afghanistan war crimes Obama may order investigation into war crimes July 12 2009

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Comment by Middle East Peace on November 19, 2009 at 11:06am

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Comment by al rogers on July 16, 2009 at 9:57pm

Afghanistan war crimes Obama orders investigation

CNN's Anderson Cooper asks President Obama whether he wants a war crimes investigation.
Obama Orders Afghanistan war crimes investigation that may have been committed under President Bush & VP Cheney administration. The CIA may have known that an Afghan warlord may be responsible for the killings of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001.

The President has ordered national security officials to look into the allegations that the Bush administration resisted efforts to investigate a CIA-backed Afghan warlord over the killings. OBama was questioned by CNN's Anderson Cooper about these allegations. The full interview will be at 10 PM Monday.

The inquiry stems from the deaths of at least 2,000 Taliban prisoners who had surrendered to the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in late 2001. The fighters were in the custody of troops led by Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a prominent Afghan warlord who has served as chief of staff of the country's post-Taliban army.

Dostum, a former communist union boss and militia leader who fought against the U.S.-backed mujahedeen in the 1980s, is known for switching sides as Afghanistan's political conflict has evolved. When the United States invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, Dostum sided with the Americans and received military and CIA support to battle the Taliban. The allegations against him first surfaced in a 2002 Newsweek report, which cited a confidential U.N. memo saying the prisoners died in cramped container trucks while being transported from their Konduz stronghold in northern Afghanistan to Sheberghan prison, west of Dostum's stronghold at Mazar-e Sharif.

At the time, the Boston, Massachusetts-based group Physicians for Human Rights said it found a mass grave in nearby Dasht-e Leili, where witnesses said the bodies of Taliban prisoners were buried. The finding prompted U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Afghanistan, to support an investigation into the allegations. But The New York Times, citing government officials and human rights organizations, reported Friday that the Bush administration "repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the episode."

State Department officials recently have tried to derail Dostum's reappointment as military chief of staff to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the newspaper reported, citing several senior officials who suggested the administration "might not be hostile to an inquiry." Dostum, a key ally of Karzai, was reportedly living in exile in Turkey until last month, when he was reinstated to his post as defense minister. He had left Afghanistan over allegations that he had kidnapped Akbar Bai, a former ally turned political rival.