 My name is Inder Komar, I'm the legal director of Komar LLP, and I'm very happy to be able to speak to you today about a lawsuit involving an Iraqi woman who I represent. The lawsuit involves the legality of the Iraq war under international law. My client and I filed this lawsuit in March 2013, and for the last couple years we have been litigating whether or not the Iraq war was illegal or international law in the northern district of California. In December 2014, the lawsuit was dismissed and subsequent to that we filed an appeal that is still pending in the night circuit. We filed our opening brief in May of 2015, and then in June we were joined by a number of amicus briefs by interested parties who wanted to support our case and support the lawsuit. Some of these amicus filings included the former US Attorney General, Randy Clark, and as well as a nonprofit called the Planethood Foundation, which was founded by a former prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials. The lawsuit currently is still in the night circuit and we have an oral argument in two weeks on December 12 in which the three judge panel will hear our arguments that the Iraq war was illegal. They are asking the court for a court order. First finding of the Iraq war was illegal. And secondly, holding that the defendants in the lawsuit, who are former Bush administration officials, including former President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Roosevelt, and how Connolly's Rice and Paul Wolfowitz should be held liable for the damages that they caused to the nation of Iraq to the Iraqi people. So we are asking the court to hold them accountable and to order them to provide for restitution and payment to Iraqi victims of the war innocent Iraqi victims who were who were impacted by the invasion. That's basically the heart of the case. We are citing to Nuremberg principles principles that were laid down at the Nuremberg trials, or in the 60 years ago, by an international tribunal composed of American, British, French and Russian judges at the Nuremberg trials. The Germans and the Japanese, the Tokyo trials were convicted of what's called aggression, aggression being what's called the supreme crime under international law. Aggression is the idea that countries can't wage war against other countries without a good reason, without a lawful reason. And what happened at the Nuremberg trials is that this panel of international judges stated that it was against the law for the Germans to invade other countries without a good reason, without a lawful reason, without being under attack. After World War II, of course, the United Nations was set up and a treaty was signed by many, many countries, including the United States to set up the United Nations. And as part of that treaty, the US gave up its right to declare war unless it was lawful under international law, which includes, you know, a declaration from the Security Council that military action is appropriate. Of course none of that happened with Iraq. Iraq was not a threat to the United States in 2003, and the Security Council had never okayed the invasion. So we allege that as a result of those acts, the war was illegal and unlawful. We also allege the war was illegal and unlawful because of the misrepresentations and lies that happened starting in 2002 and through 2003 and into the war. Specifically, we think there were two different areas of lies. So first was this notion that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were in, in league with each other. The evidence was flatly the contrary and we allege the complaint now for the Ninth Circuit that that was false. That was a lie that was told by the administration to drum up support for a war. The second thing that we allege was a lie was that the allegations that Iraq had a weapons program or weapons of mass destruction. That again was just simply not true and the evidence coming out of Iraq at the time was to the contrary. The part of the case is that there was a rush to war and that it wasn't a mistake. It was it was it was intentional and that it was knowing and that what was really at stake was these was this really kind of foul neoconservative ideology that the US military has the right to intervene everywhere in the world, even if it breaks laws and doing that. And that's what we feel should be really challenged and that's what we're hoping that the court will recognize and observe and rule on is whether or not leaders really can do that or not. So what's at stake actually, in addition to the rule of law with respect to the Iraq war is the extent to which our leaders can go can get away stop free when they commit crimes. And that's another issue that we're presenting to the court. The district court held that the leaders at former President Bush and Cheney and the others were immune from proceedings. Finding that they had an immunity under a civil law called the Westfall Act, a federal law that provides immunity in certain cases. So we're arguing that that immunity isn't appropriate here, that the immunity should be should be pierced and cast aside, because of the, the, the really, really extreme levels of wrongdoing that we think happened in the run up to the war. And we really have to think about that as a country as to whether or not we should be giving our leaders carte blanche to engage in these acts and to to be able to use violence against other people in a way that leads to tremendous levels of suffering and whether or not people should be held accountable for those deeds and for those acts. It's simply because they're directed at other people outside of the country and not directed internally to us who may be citizens or the borders of the United States. So that's these are deep, deep questions that we have to ask that are I think these are also very pressing questions. As we enter a political era, not just the United States, but globally, where we do see the rise of the extreme right wing everywhere, and where there is the tenor of fascism in a lot of places now. And we have to ask whether the lessons from World War Two and the lessons that came that created the United Nations if we're going to recall those and and think about what it means to live in a functioning democracy where where people are held accountable to laws regardless of whether or not they are our leaders or not. So we are very much looking forward to this oral argument on December 12. We're very hopeful the court will listen to us and will provide us a ruling related to the legality of Iraq war. You can follow the status of the lawsuit at witnesserock.com. That's witnesserock.com one word. And again, my name is Inder Comar and thank you very much for listening.