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	Democrats outraged as Bush commutes Libby jail term by Reuters / AP USA   July, 2007 (Reuters)   US President George W Bush has commuted the prison sentence of former top White House official Lewis "Scooter" Libby.   Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice-President Dick Cheney, was originally jailed for two-and-a-half years for obstructing an investigation into who blew the cover of a CIA agent whose husband criticised the Iraq war.   The original sentence upset some conservative Republicans and Mr Bush was under pressure to issue a pardon.   Instead Mr Bush has commuted the sentence, which means Libby still has to pay $US250,000 in fines but will escape a jail term.   Mr Bush"s decision has been condemned by the top Democrat in the US Senate. "The President"s decision to commute Mr Libby"s sentence is disgraceful," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said in a first reaction to the move.   "Libby"s conviction was the one faint glimmer of accountability for White House efforts to manipulate intelligence and silence critics of the Iraq war. "Now, even that small bit of justice has been undone," he said in a statement.   "The Constitution gives President Bush the power to commute sentences, but history will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own Vice-President"s chief of staff who was convicted of such a serious violation of law."   Reactions to Bush"s Libby decision. (The Associated Press)   Some reaction to President Bush"s decision Monday to commute the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case.   "In this case, an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws. It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals. That principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing." — Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.   "When it comes to the law, there should not be two sets of rules — one for President Bush and Vice President Cheney and another for the rest of America. Even Paris Hilton had to go to jail. No one in this administration should be above the law." — Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.   "Accountability has been in short supply in the Bush administration, and this commutation fits that pattern." — Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.   "This is exactly the kind of politics we must change so we can begin restoring the American people"s faith in a government that puts the country"s progress ahead of the bitter partisanship of recent years." — Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.   "Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences could take the action he did today. President Bush has just sent exactly the wrong signal to the country and the world." — former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.   "This commutation sends the clear signal that in this administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice." — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.   "The president said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak case. By his action today, the president shows his word is not to be believed." — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.   "It is time for the American people to be heard — I call for all Americans to flood the White House with phone calls tomorrow expressing their outrage over this blatant disregard for the rule of law." — Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.   "President Bush"s 11th-hour commutation of Scooter Libby"s sentence makes a mockery of the justice system and betrays the idea that all Americans are expected to be held accountable for their actions, even close friends of Vice President Cheney." — Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.   "By commuting Scooter Libby"s sentence, the president continues to abdicate responsibility for the actions of his administration. The only ones paying the price for this administration"s actions are the American people." — Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.   "This decision sends the wrong message about the rule of law in the United States, just as the president is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. How can we hold the line against injustices in other countries when our own executive branch deliberately sets out to smear its critics, lies about it and then wriggles away without having to pay the price in prison?" — Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif.   "The arrogance of this administration"s disdain for the law and its belief it operates with impunity are breathtaking. Will the president also commute the sentences of others who obstructed justice and lied to grand juries, or only those who act to protect President Bush and Vice President Cheney?" — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
	International Criminal Court already changing behaviour by Luis Moreno-Ocampo United Nations News Centre   July 2007   The International Criminal Court (ICC) is already moderating the behaviour of countries and raising awareness among local communities about their right to be protected from war crimes, even before its first case has gone to trial, the Court’s Prosecutor has said.   The fact that 104 countries have become States parties to the ICC shows that the Court is “a landmark in international justice,” binding all those countries to its rules, Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in an interview with the United Nations News Centre to mark yesterday’s fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the ICC.   “States recognize now that there are some limits, and that there can be no more genocide,” he said, adding that his office’s simultaneous investigations of cases in Sudan’s Darfur region, the Central African Republic (CAR), northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) indicated that the perpetrators of the world’s worst war crimes and crimes against humanity can be pursued.   Mr. Moreno-Ocampo also noted the impact the Court was having on local communities around the world, such as those in the DRC now debating the use of child soldiers, an all-too-frequent occurrence in that country’s recent conflicts. In other countries, such as Colombia, he said the media has begun discussing whether activities there should be brought before the ICC.   So far the Court has issued arrest warrants for two suspects accused of war crimes in Darfur and five leaders of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda. Thomas Lubanga, a rebel militia leader in the DRC, was arrested last year, while the Prosecutor’s Office has just begun its probe of allegations of killings and rapes in the CAR.   Mr. Moreno-Ocampo reiterated his call for Sudan to arrest the two Darfur suspects: Ahmed Muhammad Harun, currently the Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs, and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb. “Mr. Harun is now supposedly in charge of looking out for all [the displaced people in Darfur].   This is unacceptable. He has to be arrested. Sudan has to do it,” he said, adding that “while it may take time, maybe a few months or years, the destiny of Mr.Harun is in the dock in The Hague.”   Asked about suggestions that his pursuit of indictments and trials of suspects in some of the conflicts his office is investigating, especially in Darfur and northern Uganda, might be hampering wider efforts to bring peace, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo stressed that his role was dictated by his mandate – to investigate the worst of all war crimes.   “Peace negotiations can be long and complicated. But I can’t be involved in their aspects… The Security Council has noted that lasting peace requires justice and it’s my role to help in that. My duty is to end impunity and to contribute to the prevention of future crimes.”   Mr. Moreno-Ocampo, who took up his post in 2003, said his office had faced extra difficulties in carrying out its inquiries because conflicts or low-level violence continued to flare in the countries it has been investigating, making it hard to collect evidence and protect witnesses.   “This has been a major challenge for us,” he said, noting the differences with the UN war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and with the post-World War II war crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany. “They were post-conflict situations and in many cases these are not.”
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