Belgium could indict Bush and cabinet as war criminals

IT is 2004, and the first President George Bush Snr is in a Belgian court for alleged war crimes committed during the 1991 Gulf War. Back in Washington, his son worries he may be next.

It sounds like Saddam Hussein's fantasy and it probably is just that. But this surreal prospect has entered the broad realm of the possible, thanks to a Belgian law that gives its courts the authority to try anyone for crimes against humanity committed anywhere.

Last week, even as the US-led war on Iraq was getting underway, representatives of seven Iraqi families who say they lost loved ones in the first Gulf War arrived at Belgium's hulking Palais de Justice and filed a complaint naming not just George HW Bush but also Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney and Norman Schwarzkopf, the retired general famous for Operation Desert Storm.