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Belgium issues warrant for arrest of Rumsfeld
26 May 2003 by Malcolm Drury
The Belgian Ministry of Justice, Sports and International Relations has issued a warrant for the arrest of US Secretary of Offence Donald Rumsfeld. The warrant was issued under an obscure article of Belgian law on behalf of a group of Iraqi parking control operatives who claim that the US army in Iraq had not paid a large number of parking tickets.
Ministry Spokesman Heinrik van der Mullett explained: "It is permissible under Belgian law to arrest anyone, anywhere. In this case, it appears that American tanks and armoured cars flagrantly violated Baghdad's strict parking by-laws, by parking in restricted zones, ignoring parking meters, and, in at least one case, harassing a parking officer who was peacefully going about his legitimate business. They may be the occupying force, but that doesn't give them the right to behave like that."
"As they were Mr. Rumsfeld's tanks and troops, it was his responsibility to see that they paid the fines, and given their failure to do so, we're going after him."
Mr. van der Mullett estimated the value of the unpaid tickets at a little over $1,000 US.
When asked by reporters what he thought of this, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "Am I going to yield to this intimidation from a bunch of chocolate-eating legal monkeys? You better believe I'm not. Do I make up my own questions and then answer them? You bet your life I do. Do I have highly trained troops with nothing much to do and itchy fingers, who would just love a few weeks in Europe? I sure do!"
Pentagon spokesman Elmer K. Ramsbottom III noted later that if the Belgians wanted to take that last statement as a threat, that was their prerogative, adding that based on recent experience in Iraq the US forces had now been able to work out most of the bugs in their "smart" bombs.
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