GW Bush vs Richard Nixon.. Worst criminal of the two?

Answer 1

I thought Nixon would always be the worst and that Reagan, Mr. Teflon, even though convicted as a war criminal in Iran Contra by the World Court, got away with most!

Bush has them all beat by a mile!

Now we are finding out about his tortures and camps!

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

ADVERTISEMENT

Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.

"It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release — without charge — last month. "I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."

Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.

Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross.

Defenders of the system, which has only grown since soldiers' photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib shocked the world, say it's an unfortunate necessity in the battles to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and to keep suspected terrorists out of action.

Every U.S. detainee in Iraq "is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for U.S.-led military detainee operations in Iraq.

But dozens of ex-detainees, government ministers, lawmakers, human rights activists, lawyers and scholars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States said the detention system often is unjust and hurts the war on terror by inflaming anti-Americanism in Iraq and elsewhere.

Building for the Long Term

Reports of extreme physical and mental abuse, symbolized by the notorious Abu Ghraib prison photos of 2004, have abated as the Pentagon has rejected torture-like treatment of the inmates. Most recently, on Sept. 6, the Pentagon issued a new interrogation manual banning forced nakedness, hooding, stress positions and other abusive techniques.

The same day, President Bush said the CIA's secret outposts in the prison network had been emptied, and 14 terror suspects from them sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face trial in military tribunals. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the tribunal system, however, and the White House and Congress are now wrestling over the legal structure of such trials.

Living conditions for detainees may be improving as well. The U.S. military cites the toilets of Bagram, Afghanistan: In a cavernous old building at that air base, hundreds of detainees in their communal cages now have indoor plumbing and privacy screens, instead of exposed chamber pots.

Whatever the progress, small or significant, grim realities persist.

Human rights groups count dozens of detainee deaths for which no one has been punished or that were never explained. The secret prisons — unknown in number and location — remain available for future detainees. The new manual banning torture doesn't cover CIA interrogators. And thousands of people still languish in a limbo, deprived of one of common law's oldest rights, habeas corpus, the right to know why you are imprisoned.

"If you, God forbid, are an innocent Afghan who gets sold down the river by some warlord rival, you can end up at Bagram and you have absolutely no way of clearing your name," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in New York. "You can't have a lawyer present evidence, or do anything organized to get yourself out of there."

The U.S. government has contended it can hold detainees until the "war on terror" ends — as it determines.

"I don't think we've gotten to the question of how long," said retired admiral John D. Hutson, former top lawyer for the U.S. Navy. "When we get up to 'forever,' I think it will be tested" in court, he said.

The Navy is planning long-term at Guantanamo. This fall it expects to open a new, $30-million maximum-security wing at its prison complex there, a concrete-and-steel structure replacing more temporary camps.

In Iraq, Army jailers are a step ahead. Last month they opened a $60-million, state-of-the-art detention center at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad's airport. The Army oversees about 13,000 prisoners in Iraq at Cropper, Camp Bucca in the southern desert, and Fort Suse in the Kurdish north.

Neither prisoners of war nor criminal defendants, they are just "security detainees" held "for imperative reasons of security," spokesman Curry said, using language from an annex to a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the U.S. presence here.

Questions of Law, Sovereignty

President Bush laid out the U.S. position in a speech Sept. 6.

"These are enemy combatants who are waging war on our nation," he said. "We have a right under the laws of war, and we have an obligation to the American people, to detain these enemies and stop them from rejoining the battle."

But others say there's no need to hold these thousands outside of the rules for prisoners of war established by the Geneva Conventions.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared last March that the extent of arbitrary detention here is "not consistent with provisions of international law governing internment on imperative reasons of security."

Meanwhile, officials of Nouri al-Maliki's 4-month-old Iraqi government say the U.S. detention system violates Iraq's national rights.

"As long as sovereignty has transferred to Iraqi hands, the Americans have no right to detain any Iraqi person," said Fadhil al-Sharaa, an aide to the prime minister. "The detention should be conducted only with the permission of the Iraqi judiciary."

At the Justice Ministry, Deputy Minister Busho Ibrahim told AP it has been "a daily request" that the detainees be brought under Iraqi authority.

There's no guarantee the Americans' 13,000 detainees would fare better under control of the Iraqi government, which U.N. officials say holds 15,000 prisoners.

But little has changed because of these requests. When the Americans formally turned over Abu Ghraib prison to Iraqi control on Sept. 2, it was empty but its 3,000 prisoners remained in U.S. custody, shifted to Camp Cropper.

Life in Custody

The cases of U.S.-detained Iraqis are reviewed by a committee of U.S. military and Iraqi government officials. The panel recommends criminal charges against some, release for others. As of Sept. 9, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq had put 1,445 on trial, convicting 1,252. In the last week of August, for example, 38 were sentenced on charges ranging from illegal weapons possession to murder, for the shooting of a U.S. Marine.

Almost 18,700 have been released since June 2004, the U.S. command says, not including many more who were held and then freed by local military units and never shipped to major prisons.

Some who were released, no longer considered a threat, later joined or rejoined the insurgency.

The review process is too slow, say U.N. officials. Until they are released, often families don't know where their men are — the prisoners are usually men — or even whether they're in American hands.

Ex-detainee Mouayad Yasin Hassan, 31, seized in April 2004 as a suspected Sunni Muslim insurgent, said he wasn't allowed to obtain a lawyer or contact his family during 13 months at Abu Ghraib and Bucca, where he was interrogated incessantly. When he asked why he was in prison, he said, the answer was, "We keep you for security reasons."

Another released prisoner, Waleed Abdul Karim, 26, recounted how his guards would wield their absolute authority.

"Tell us about the ones who attack Americans in your neighborhood," he quoted an interrogator as saying, "or I will keep you in prison for another 50 years."

As with others, Karim's confinement may simply have strengthened support for the anti-U.S. resistance. "I will hate Americans for the rest of my life," he said.

Answer 2

Bush, Nixon was just a sweaty paranoid. Never had a real power backing, born poor, no ivy league, and very insecure. Small time crook.
Bush on the other hand was born with a silver boot in his mouth, maybe if it had been applied to his keister a few times he wouldn't have grown up to be such a maniacal piece of dreck
He's a big time criminal and both he and his administration should be arrested and charged with high crimes in an International court Of Law. If his agenda continues , you can bet that that we are are going down the path of a Theocratic Dictatorship and will have as many detention camps as Hitlers Germany.

Answer 3

By far DUBYA!!!!!! Nixon may have created a scandal, at least no one died. But Bush on the other hand, is responsible for the deaths of over 110,000 Iraqi soldiers and civilians, and American soldiers and civilians.

PS buttercup, the press loves Bush. He has had more softball press conferences than any other president in history. And he hasn't gone after the perpetrators of 9/11, he's blindly focus on a senseless war in Iraq. We have the most powerful and sophisticated military in the world and we can't find Osama.

As for chazhio, just wait until after he leaves the presidency and insiders start to speak out, then we'll find out how much of a criminal he really is.

Answer 4

After the reign of the Bush Administration, more people will come forward with information about their crimes. And I believe we will find that there have been far more crimes committed than we are aware.

andy - Your response made absolutely no sense. Clinton had nothing to do with the question, and both Nixon and Bush have committed crimes. Just because the Republican controlled congress refuses to investigate, doesn't mean he isn't a criminal.

If you don't think Nixon is a criminal, then I must ask you - Do you smoke it or inject it?

Answer 5

Neither are criminals. Nixon was a good president who only failed at keeping other people in his party under control. He was impeached because he took on the responsibility that every leader should for his failure to control others with less authority. And Bush is a GREAT president. I can't imagine what would have happened to this beautiful country without his leadership after 9-11 and the terrible natural disasters this country has seen recently.

Answer 6

For your information....neither are criminals. The press hated
Nixon and the press hates Bush. Nixon's men broke into their
headquarters looking for information. When Nixon was a Gov.
in California, democrats broke into his office and did the same
and no one was ever reprimended for it even. We have had wars
under different presidents and this is not a criminal offense. This
was in response to 911 and the horrible killing of over 3000
innocent people. Real hero's go after these son-of-b???hes or
they would just keep up going after us and killing our people here
in the U.S. If Bush hadn't retaliated, then democrats would have
raved and complained because he did nothing. He couldn't win
if he wanted to. The terrorists will be over here in our streets one
of these days and you'll see why Bush did what he did. Mark my
word. You just can't let bullies and killers ruin our people and our
country and Bush intends to do everything he can to stop them.

Answer 7

I think Bush is corrupt but you really can't compare the two. We all know for a fact that Nixon committed crimes from which he had to be pardoned.

We may suspect many things about Bush but where is the actual proof? Until it surfaces you can't compare the two fairly.

Answer 8

Criminal Record Search Database : http://SearchVerifyInfo.com/Support

Answer 9

Definetly Bush. No comparison. If I remember correctly Nixon pulled us out of Vietnam to stop the loss of many lives. I believe bush is doing the exact opposite

Answer 10

#1 Bill Clinton. #2 Ted Kennedy. #3 Jimmy Carter. #4 Lyndon Johnson.

Answer 11

Well Bush hasn't really committed too many crimes, and Nixon crimes were BS since both parties do it all the time, even today...so...