Last week, while British MP George Galloway was delivering his searing testimony to the US Senate for his alleged oil-for-food corruption, activists and legal counsel were delivering a law summons to George W. Bush and Tony Blair to attend the culminating session of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) www.worldtribunal.org.

     The summons were delivered to several embassies around the world, including Brussels, Tokyo, Lisbon, and Istanbul, site of the concluding session in June. A letter was also sent to Mr. Bush giving him the opportunity to respond to testimony that the US has committed war crimes in contravention to the Geneva Conventions.

     The citizen’s Tribunal was initiated two years ago when it became clear the US and its Coalition of the Willing would preemptively invade Iraq. The idea for a tribunal erupted in tandem at anti-war meetings around the world and the first session was held in London seven months later by the loose-knit organization. Since then, 20+ sessions have been held around the world, each organized by local NGOs and focusing on different aspects of the war: sessions have included human rights, use of uranium munitions (or depleted uranium), the role of the media, the “legality” of privatizing Iraq’s resources, and crimes committed against cultural heritage.

     As Hilal Kuey, spokesperson for the Turkey WTI says, “Since the US administration does not recognize the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UK government has used its power to avoid being prosecuted for an illegal and illegitimate war, the citizens of the world have undertaken an initiative to reclaim justice. The world is calling for Bush and Blair to be held accountable for the crimes committed in Iraq,”

     The WTI was patterned after the Russell Tribunal, set up in 1967 to investigate war crimes committed during the Vietnam War and act as a historical repository.

     However, organizers do not see the Tribunal ending with Istanbul. In addition to recording the wrongs done to the Iraqi people and their country, the Tribunal’s goal is also to examine the implementation of justice-what’s in the way, what impacts does this war have on global security, can US/UK claims that terrorism is being reduced by its current strategies be accepted.

     World Tribunal on Iraq organizers plan to use the outcome of the Istanbul session to continue building an international peace and justice movement.

     While little is known of the Tribunal in the United States, there is strong international network already established whose focus is holding the US accountable for crimes committed in Iraq’s invasion and on-going occupation. But perhaps a greater question for the movement is the question of what to do now that the US has made clear its willingness to use its might where it wants.

     It goes without saying that neither Mr. Bush nor any member of his administration will take up the WTI’s invitation. But in the end he may be unable to ignore the growing international movement to rein in the United States as the violence in Iraq underscores how unconscionable Mr. Bush’s invasion was. Americans had to wait for Mr. Galloway to fly halfway around the world and deliver so eloquently what the Democrats ought to have been saying all along:

     “Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction…. had no connection to al-Qaeda…had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11, 2001.

     I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

     "Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.”