Bush counterterrorism czar: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld all committed 'war crimes'

President George W. Bush's former top counterterrorism official said this week that he is convinced that Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld all committed war crimes during the Iraq war.

In an interview that will air in full next week, Democracy Now's Amy Goodman asked former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke if "President Bush should be brought up on war crimes [charges], and Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, for the attack on Iraq."

"I think things that they authorized probably fall within the area of war crimes," Clarke agreed. "Whether that would be productive or not, I think, is a discussion we could all have."

"But we have established procedures now with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where people who take actions as serving presidents or prime ministers of countries have been indicted and have been tried. So the precedent is there to do that sort of thing," he pointed out. "And I think we need to ask ourselves whether or not it would be useful to do that in the case of members of the Bush administration."

"It’s clear that things that the Bush administration did — in my mind, at least, it’s clear that some of the things they did were war crimes."

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, has also said that he would be willing to testify in a war crimes trial against Bush administration officials.

"I’d be willing to testify, and I’d be willing to take any punishment I’m due," Wilkerson told Goodman in 2011.

Watch the video below from Democracy Now, broadcast May 29, 2014.