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Dying Iraq vet calls Bush a murderer

An American soldier shot by a sniper in Iraq nine years ago is accusing former president George W Bush and Dick Cheney of "egregious war crimes, plunder and murder" in his dying days.

Tomas Young has decided to end his life by turning off his feeding tube but not before taking aim at the Bush administration for its involvement in the Iraq war 10 years ago.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain reports that Mr Young has written a letter to Bush and Cheney, claiming to speak on behalf of the 4,488 US soldiers and marines who have died in the war.

"My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care," Mr Young writes in the letter published on truth.dog.com

"I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

"I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power...Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit.

"We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins?

"My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial."