In the high Spanish court called the Audiencia Nacional, charges for international crimes had already been lodged against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and other nefarious world leaders. On Oct. 6, new charges were brought charging Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama with crimes against humanity for their responsibility for harming the people of Iraq.

The next day, Oct. 7, the Senate in Madrid voted to change the law allowing such charges to be made, but the Oct. 6 charges remain in force.

The news release issued by those bringing the charges says that they are prosecuting “19 years of intended destruction.” The charges include the bombing of civilians, the starvation by sanctions that resulted in over one million deaths, as well as the invasion and occupation of the country.

The complainants seek to bring these world leaders to justice. The charges are filed on behalf of the 500,000 children who, according to the World Health Organization, died because sanctions stopped food aid and other necessities from reaching to the Iraqi people.

The case also seeks justice for the victims of the bombing campaigns that destroyed the water purification services of Iraq, as well as for the hundreds of thousands who died in the invasion and occupation beginning in 2003, when foreign troops illegally prowled through the neighborhoods, cities and countrysides of Iraq, violating the rights of this sovereign nation that refused to bow before the interests of Wall Street.

The tortures at Abu Ghraib and the approval they received from the Pentagon have also been listed among the crimes. The 2003 government of the Spanish state, led by rightist Prime Minister José Aznar, colluded with the invasion. In March 2004, a bombing in the main Atocha train station in Madrid killed over 100 people. An election held only days after the bombing removed Aznar. The new Socialist Party government removed Spanish troops from Iraq.

Many hope now that the U.S. and British leaders named in the indictment will be held accountable for their crimes. The charges have again brought before the public the extent of the imperialist crimes in Iraq, which at least in the U.S. are systematically ignored by the corporate media.

For more information, visit The Brussels Tribunal.

Workers World