From TheNation.com: Orders to Torture:

"One revelation in particular should be sounding a constitutional emergency siren: The President has known for more than two years that his Administration has been pursuing policies that could qualify as war crimes under federal and international law. In a January 25, 2002, memo, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales advised the President of 'the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act,' a federal statute. He advised Bush to invent a legal technicality--declaring detainees in the 'war on terror' to be outside the Geneva Conventions--which, he said, 'substantially reduces' the chance of prosecution. Gonzales went further, telling the President that the war on terrorism 'renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners'; he pooh-poohed concerns that abandoning the Geneva standards might endanger US troops.

Let's be clear about what this means: Gonzales was urging--and the President adopted as policy--an end run around federal laws. The War Crimes Act, passed by Congress in 1996, allows criminal prosecution of Americans for actions that violate the rights granted prisoners and civilians by the Geneva Conventions and for 'outrages upon personal dignity.' It is backed by the full range of federal penalties, up to and including the death penalty. "

Now there's a thought: maybe George W. Bush will go down in history as the first former (p)Resident to be executed for war crimes. At the very least, if the U.N. can issue an international arrest warrant for Indonesia's former military commander General Wiranto for crimes against humanity allegedly committed in East Timor five years ago, then why not for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld?