| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"Justice-for-all" |
| Date: |
27 Oct 2004 02:00:59 AM |
| Object: |
BUSH-IS A PRESIDENT WHO LIES-IMPEACHABLE? |
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----
Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction:
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
========================================================
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Jun. 06, 2003
President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking
Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American
military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements
about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical
actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the
past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues
like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that
they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless,
perhaps, they start another war.
That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are
answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of
President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security,
are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A
president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it.
President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam
forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's
false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.
Frankly, I hope the WMDs are found, for it will end the matter.
Clearly, the story of the missing WMDs is far from over. And it is too
early, of course, to draw conclusions. But it is not too early to
explore the relevant issues.
President Bush's Statements On Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Readers may not recall exactly what President Bush said about weapons
of mass destruction; I certainly didn't. Thus, I have compiled these
statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he had, indeed, been
as explicit and declarative as I had recalled.
Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used
for the production of biological weapons."
United Nations Address
September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is
rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized
Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the
dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio Address
October 5, 2002
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological
weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical
agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing
fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to
disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're
concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions
targeting the United States."
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear
weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi
nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his
nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is
rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear
program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength
aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which
are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the
materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX
nerve agent."
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt
that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most
lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003
Should The President Get The Benefit Of The Doubt?
When these statements were made, Bush's let-me-mince-no-words posture
was convincing to many Americans. Yet much of the rest of the world,
and many other Americans, doubted them.
As Bush's veracity was being debated at the United Nations, it was
also being debated on campuses - including those where I happened to
be lecturing at the time.
On several occasions, students asked me the following question: Should
they believe the President of the United States? My answer was that
they should give the President the benefit of the doubt, for several
reasons deriving from the usual procedures that have operated in every
modern White House and that, I assumed, had to be operating in the
Bush White House, too.
First, I assured the students that these statements had all been
carefully considered and crafted. Presidential statements are the
result of a process, not a moment's thought. White House speechwriters
process raw information, and their statements are passed on to senior
aides who have both substantive knowledge and political insights. And
this all occurs before the statement ever reaches the President for
his own review and possible revision.
Second, I explained that - at least in every White House and
administration with which I was familiar, from Truman to Clinton -
statements with national security implications were the most carefully
considered of all. The White House is aware that, in making these
statements, the President is speaking not only to the nation, but also
to the world.
Third, I pointed out to the students, these statements are typically
corrected rapidly if they are later found to be false. And in this
case, far from backpedaling from the President's more extreme claims,
Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer had actually, at times, been
even more emphatic than the President had. For example, on January 9,
2003, Fleischer stated, during his press briefing, "We know for a fact
that there are weapons there."
In addition, others in the Administration were similarly quick to back
the President up, in some cases with even more unequivocal statements.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly claimed that Saddam
had WMDs - and even went so far as to claim he knew "where they are;
they're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
Finally, I explained to the students that the political risk was so
great that, to me, it was inconceivable that Bush would make these
statements if he didn't have damn solid intelligence to back him up.
Presidents do not stick their necks out only to have them chopped off
by political opponents on an issue as important as this, and if there
was any doubt, I suggested, Bush's political advisers would be telling
him to hedge. Rather than stating a matter as fact, he would be say:
"I have been advised," or "Our intelligence reports strongly suggest,"
or some such similar hedge. But Bush had not done so.
So what are we now to conclude if Bush's statements are found, indeed,
to be as grossly inaccurate as they currently appear to have been?
After all, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and given
Bush's statements, they should not have been very hard to find - for
they existed in large quantities, "thousands of tons" of chemical
weapons alone. Moreover, according to the statements, telltale
facilities, groups of scientists who could testify, and production
equipment also existed.
So where is all that? And how can we reconcile the White House's
unequivocal statements with the fact that they may not exist?
There are two main possibilities. One that something is seriously
wrong within the Bush White House's national security operations. That
seems difficult to believe. The other is that the President has
deliberately misled the nation, and the world.
A Desperate Search For WMDs Has So Far Yielded Little, If Any, Fruit
Even before formally declaring war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the
President had dispatched American military special forces into Iraq to
search for weapons of mass destruction, which he knew would provide
the primary justification for Operation Freedom. None were found.
Throughout Operation Freedom's penetration of Iraq and drive toward
Baghdad, the search for WMDs continued. None were found.
As the coalition forces gained control of Iraqi cities and
countryside, special search teams were dispatched to look for WMDs.
None were found.
During the past two and a half months, according to reliable news
reports, military patrols have visited over 300 suspected WMD sites
throughout Iraq. None of the prohibited weapons were found there.
British and American Press Reaction to the Missing WMDs
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is also under serious attack in
England, which he dragged into the war unwillingly, based on the
missing WMDs. In Britain, the missing WMDs are being treated as
scandalous; so far, the reaction in the U.S. has been milder.
New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has taken Bush sharply to
task, asserting that it is "long past time for this administration to
be held accountable." "The public was told that Saddam posed an
imminent threat," Krugman argued. "If that claim was fraudulent," he
continued, "the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in
American political history - worse than Watergate, worse than
Iran-contra." But most media outlets have reserved judgment as the
search for WMDs in Iraq continues.
Still, signs do not look good. Last week, the Pentagon announced it
was shifting its search from looking for WMD sites, to looking for
people who can provide leads as to where the missing WMDs might be.
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
John Bolton, while offering no new evidence, assured Congress that
WMDs will indeed be found. And he advised that a new unit called the
Iraq Survey Group, composed of some 1400 experts and technicians from
around the world, is being deployed to assist in the searching.
But, as Time magazine reported, the leads are running out. According
to Time, the Marine general in charge explained that "[w]e've been to
virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and
Baghdad," and remarked flatly, "They're simply not there."
Perhaps most troubling, the President has failed to provide any
explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements,
yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there
an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be?
Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently misinterpreted? Or
was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?
The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and
reality only increases the sense that the President's misstatements
may actually have been intentional lies.
Investigating The Iraqi War Intelligence Reports
Even now, while the jury is still out as to whether intentional
misconduct occurred, the President has a serious credibility problem.
Newsweek magazine posed the key questions: "If America has entered a
new age of pre-emption --when it must strike first because it cannot
afford to find out later if terrorists possess nuclear or biological
weapons--exact intelligence is critical. How will the United States
take out a mad despot or a nuclear bomb hidden in a cave if the CIA
can't say for sure where they are? And how will Bush be able to
maintain support at home and abroad?"
In an apparent attempt to bolster the President's credibility, and his
own, Secretary Rumsfeld himself has now called for a Defense
Department investigation into what went wrong with the pre-war
intelligence. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd finds this effort
about on par with O. J.'s looking for his wife's killer. But there may
be a difference: Unless the members of Administration can find someone
else to blame - informants, surveillance technology, lower-level
personnel, you name it - they may not escape fault themselves.
Congressional committees are also looking into the pre-war
intelligence collection and evaluation. Senator John Warner (R-VA),
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his committee
and the Senate Intelligence Committee would jointly investigate the
situation. And the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
plans an investigation.
These investigations are certainly appropriate, for there is potent
evidence of either a colossal intelligence failure or misconduct - and
either would be a serious problem. When the best case scenario seems
to be mere incompetence, investigations certainly need to be made.
Senator Bob Graham - a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee - told CNN's Aaron Brown, that while he still hopes they
find WMDs or at least evidence thereof, he has also contemplated three
other possible alternative scenarios:
One is that [the WMDs] were spirited out of Iraq, which maybe is the
worst of all possibilities, because now the very thing that we were
trying to avoid, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, could
be in the hands of dozens of groups. Second, that we had bad
intelligence. Or third, that the intelligence was satisfactory but
that it was manipulated, so as just to present to the American people
and to the world those things that made the case for the necessity of
war against Iraq.
Senator Graham seems to believe there is a serious chance that it is
the final scenario that reflects reality. Indeed, Graham told CNN
"there's been a pattern of manipulation by this administration."
Graham has good reason to complain. According to the New York Times,
he was one of the few members of the Senate who saw the national
intelligence estimate that was the basis for Bush's decisions. After
reviewing it, Senator Graham requested that the Bush Administration
declassify the information before the Senate voted on the
Administration's resolution requesting use of the military in Iraq.
But rather than do so, CIA Director Tenet merely sent Graham a letter
discussing the findings. Graham then complained that Tenet's letter
only addressed "findings that supported the administration's position
on Iraq," and ignored information that raised questions about
intelligence. In short, Graham suggested that the Administration, by
cherrypicking only evidence to its own liking, had manipulated the
information to support its conclusion.
Recent statements by one of the high-level officials privy to the
decisionmaking process that lead to the Iraqi war also strongly
suggests manipulation, if not misuse of the intelligence agencies.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, during an interview with
Sam Tannenhaus of Vanity Fair magazine, said: "The truth is that for
reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we
settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was
weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." More recently,
Wolfowitz added what most have believed all along, that the reason we
went after Iraq is that "[t]he country swims on a sea of oil."
Worse than Watergate? A Potential Huge Scandal If WMDs Are Still
Missing
Krugman is right to suggest a possible comparison to Watergate. In the
three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I
have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush
Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented
intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support,
military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a
monstrous misdeed.
As I remarked in an earlier column, this Administration may be due for
a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, it
was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's
doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war
based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate
misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a
high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also
be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal
anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the
United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any
purpose."
It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was
about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the
CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that
manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly
is a serious abuse of presidential power.
Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his
political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same
kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse
national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony
reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us
hope that is not the case.
What Do You Think? Message Boards
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former Counsel to the President
of the United States.
Company | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer Copyright © 1994-2004 FindLaw
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| User: "Justice-for-all" |
|
| Title: Re: BUSH-IS A PRESIDENT WHO LIES-IMPEACHABLE? |
30 Oct 2004 02:32:16 PM |
|
|
----
Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction:
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
========================================================
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Jun. 06, 2003
President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking
Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American
military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements
about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical
actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the
past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues
like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that
they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless,
perhaps, they start another war.
===================================
Krugman is right to suggest a possible comparison to Watergate. In the
three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I
have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush
Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented
intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support,
military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a
monstrous misdeed.
As I remarked in an earlier column, this Administration may be due for
a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, it
was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's
doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war
based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate
misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a
high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also
be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal
anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the
United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any
purpose."
It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was
about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the
CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that
manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly
is a serious abuse of presidential power.
Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his
political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same
kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse
national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony
reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us
hope that is not the case.>
John Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former Counsel to the President
of the United States.
=========================================>
From: save-our-democracy (mcsav40@yahoo.com)
Subject: Re: THE C.I.A.-IS THE U.S.'S MAFIA
View: Complete Thread (22 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.culture.alaska
Date: 2004-06-06 14:16:37 PST
George Allen <George@net> wrote in message news:<10c58edt9e5ckd2@corp.supernews.com>...
save-our-democracy wrote:
(NOTE: IRAQ JOINED THE UNITED NATIONS 3 DAYS "BEFORE" THE U.S.A. AND
BOTH COUNTRIES SIGNED ON TO THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER, WHICH CHARTER
IS AN "INTERNATIONAL TREATY" AND WHICH THE U.S. CONSTITUTION MANDATES
THE PRESIDENT "TO ABIDE BY", I.E. IF THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.
VIOLATES THESE INTERNATIONAL "TREATIES", IT IS AN IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE.
GEORGE, "NO NOTHING" POSTED:
YOU HAVE GONE OVER THE EDGE IF YOU BELIEVE THIS.
---------------------------------------------------
MY RESPONSE:
I HAVE ALREADY MADE MY POST OF THE STATEMENTS OF MANY LAW PROFESSORS,
WHO CLEARLY STATE AND SUPPORT WHAT I HAVE SAID ABOVE..SINCE YOU HAVE
PROVEN THAT YOU CAN'T OR WON'T "DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH" TO BACK UP "YOUR
STUPID STATEMENTS", I HAVE GONE ONE STEP FARTHER TO EDUCATE YOU
GEORGY...HERE IS THE ARTICLE IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION THAT STATES
"TREATIES" ARE TO BE UPHELD BY ALL U.S. OFFICIALS AND PRESIDENTS,
WHICH THE LAW PROFFESSORS, CLEARLY STATE THE "U.N. CHARTER", IS "A
TREATY", AND "IS", AS STATED HERE IN THE CONSTITUTION "THE SUPREME LAW
OF THE LAND", THUS...VIOLATION OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION BY PRESIDENT
GEORGE BUSH TO VIOLATE THIS "TREATY", I.E. U.N. CHARTER, IS AN
IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE, I.E. THE "INTENTIONAL VIOLATION OF HIS "OATH OF
OFFICE".
IT IS CLEAR THAT GEORGE BUSH, LIKE YOU, GEORGE, ARE
COMPLETELY IGNORANT OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, AND FEEL THAT "WHATEVER
YOU "SPEW", IS "THE LAW".
BUT, UNLIKE YOU GEORGE, THE GEORGE THAT IS SITTING IN THE OVAL OFFICE
IS "SURROUNDED WITH ATTORNEYS", WHO "KNOW WHAT THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
"SAYS", AND "HAD TO HAVE WARNED GEORGE BUSH, THAT "IF" CHOSE TO ATTACK
IRAQ, "WITHOUT U.N. APPROVAL (WHICH IS REQUIRED IN THIS TREATY), AND
IRAQ HAD "NOT" ATTACKED THE U.S. OR HAD THE ABILITY TO DO SO, BUSH
WOULD BE SUBJECT TO IMPEACHMENT "AND" SUBJECT TO CRIMINAL INDICTMENTS
UNDER THE NEW U.N. INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT...FOR WHICH...I HAVE
BEEN ADVOCATING FOR THE PAST 3 1/2 YEARS WHEN BUSH MADE IT QUITE
CLEAR, HE WAS GOING TO ILLEGALLY BOMB AND "MURDER" TENS OF THOUSANDS
OF INNOCENT IRAQI PEOPLE, THEN OCCUPY THAT COUNTRY FOR IT'S OIL. IT
HAS ALREADY BEEN STATED IN THE MANY ARTICLES I HAVE POSTED, THIS
SO-CALLED PRESIDENTIAL ACTION, IS THE MOST HEINOUS AND TYRANNICAL
ACTION OF ANY U.S. PRESIDENT AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SHOULD BE
OUTRAGED AND DEMANDING CRIMINAL INDICTMENTS AGAINST HIM AND HIS
HENCHMEN.
TO DO NOTHING, OR WORSE,...TO TRY AND DEFEND BUSH & CO.'S CRIMINAL
ACTS, WHICH PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF IS OBVIOUSLY DOING, JUST PROVES TO
THE WORLD THAT "THE U.S., NOT IRAQ..IS THE "REAL TERRORIST NATION" AND
THEY (OTHER COUNTRIES, AS WELL AS THE SO-CALLED TERRORISTS, WHO ARE
"DEFENDING THEMSELVES" FROM THIS U.S. TERRORISM, ARE "LEGALLY
JUSTIFIED IN BOMBING THE U.S. FOR THEIR ILLEGAL ACTS"..
SO...GEORGY, YOUR STUPIDITY AND THAT OF ALL OF THOSE "BUSH SUPPORTERS"
ARE REALLY TO BLAME FOR ANY FURTHER ATTACKS THAT TAKE PLACE IN THIS
COUNTRY, SO WHY DON'T YOU ALL JUST SHUT UP AND START USING "YOUR BRAIN
INSTEAD OF YOUR MOUTH", IF IN FACT YOU STILL HAVE 2 GRAY CELLS THAT
ACTUALLY WORK AND AREN'T TOTALLY DESTROYED BY DRUGS/BOOZE AND STOP
PROVING TO THE WORLD THAT WE ARE "ALL" LUNATIC TERRORISTS LIKE THE ONE
WHO IS CALLING HIMSELF "THE WAR PRESIDENT". SYLVIA P.S. MY FIRST
QUESTION TO YOU WAS MEANT TO READ..."HOW "OLD" ARE YOU"? REASON: YOUR
QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS SOUND LIKE YOU ARE ABOUT 12 YEARS OLD AND
MIGHT BE OVER-LOOKED FOR YOUR OBVIOUS IGNORANCE...
-------------
U.S. Constitution
collection home search
Article VI
All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption
of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States
under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be
made in pursuance thereof;
and all treaties made, or which shall be made,
--------------------
under the authority of the United States,
shall be the supreme law of the land; and
***********************************
the judges in every state shall be bound thereby,
------------------------------------------------
anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary
notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and
the members of the several state legislatures, and
all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States
*************************************************************
and of the several states,
shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution;
*******************************************************************
but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any
office or public trust under the United States.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.
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| User: "John Tibbs" |
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| Title: Re: BUSH-IS A PRESIDENT WHO LIES-IMPEACHABLE? |
31 Oct 2004 08:28:20 AM |
|
|
"Justice-for-all" <george_corinne@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:d768b7d5.0410301132.2c0d93af@posting.google.com...
----
Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction:
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
========================================================
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Jun. 06, 2003
Oh, Yeah. John Dean was the democrat plant who betrayed Nixon. Really a
trustworthy opinion writer.
--
.............................................................................
....................
If you like uncertainty,
Politics over issues,
Manicures over manliness,
Borrowed camo for photo ops,
Frances permission to defend,
Withdrawal without winning,
Dead people voting,
Convicts voting,
Doctor's leaving the practice,
Outsourcing our medicines,
Elitist, Condescending politicians,
Schools that don't teach,
Schools that brainwash kids,
Empty, impossible promises,
Colorful oratory without meaning,
Then, Vote Democrat
If you want security,
Straightforward talk,
Down home values,
Respect for the constitution,
Then Vote Republican!
I am a
Conservative Independent
www.townhall.com
jvt
.
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| User: "Justice-for-all" |
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| Title: Re: BUSH-IS A PRESIDENT WHO LIES-IMPEACHABLE? |
31 Oct 2004 05:19:38 PM |
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|
9-11-01-BUSH THREATENS BIN LADEN WITH WAR OVER OIL PIPELINE:
===================================================
Print This Story E-mail This Story
Hell to Pay, Part Four: The Proving Ground
==========================================
By William Rivers Pitt
GO TO ORIGINAL: http://www.truthout.org
(TYPE IN ABOVE TITLE IN THE SEARCH ENGINE)
t r u t h o u t | Tuesday 14 May, 2002
Some months ago, a book was published in France entitled:
'Osama bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth.'
=====================================
The authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasique, described a
connection between the September 11th terrorist attacks and a stalled
plan to build a pipeline to exploit the vast natural gas fields along
the Caspian Sea in Turkmenistan.
Their story pointed damning fingers at American petroleum companies
and
the Bush administration, citing instances where U.S. anti-terrorism
efforts were thwarted in order to smooth the way for the pipeline
deal.
Brisard and Dasique were paid little mind by the American news media.
===================================================================
Many of their allegations were based upon conjecture, circumstantial
evidence, and the words of a dead man named John O'Neill.
Their argument seemed plausible enough the interests of the Bush
===============================================================
administration and the energy industry are, in essence, one and the
same
========================================================================
- but without proper corroboration, there was nowhere for the story to
go.
In the last 100 hours, however, the substance behind Brisard and
Dasique's accusations has been amply augmented.
The story begins in 1998,
========================
with an American petroleum corporation called Unocal.
======================================================
Unocal was heavily invested in a planned pipeline that would run
from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, and out to a warm
water port.
From there, natural gas piped down from the Caspian Sea
would be made available for sale to American and Asian markets.
=============================================================
The deal required approval from the governments of all three nations,
including the Taliban.
If terms could be met, Unocal and its investors stood to reap enormous
profits.
The deal was destroyed along with two American embassies in Africa,
==================================================================
victims of attacks by Osama bin Laden.
============================================
Because
=======
bin Laden was based in Afghanistan and supported by the Taliban,
the Clinton administration forbade any American company from dealing
with them.
A blizzard of cruise missiles soon followed this order,
========================================================
and Unocal was forced to wait for calmer days before it
could continue to pursue the pipeline deal.
Without Afghanistan, the puzzle piece at the center of
the arrangement, everything crashed to a halt.
On a frigid, rainy January day in 2001,
=======================================
Unocal was given reason to rejoice.
George W. Bush had just taken the oath of office, and was now
President of the United States.
The power of the American government was immediately brought to
bear in the situation.
Enter Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad,
======================================
who in the early *1990s served Unocal as an advisor* on the
nascent pipeline project.
In 1997,
========
Khalilzad was present with Unocal representatives when they
hosted a delegation of Taliban officials in Houston.
====================================================
Khalilzad was part of a full-court press by the Bush administration
===================================================================
to see the pipeline deal through to completion.
Their main objective was to bring the Taliban,
=============================================
who had become decidedly disinterested in the project, back on board.
====================================================================
The American pitch to the Taliban,
which was still hosting Osama bin Laden,
========================================
became so intense that the Taliban hired an American public
relations expert named Laila Helms to broker negotiations.
High-level meetings between:
===========================
the Bush administration and
======================
the Taliban
==========
continued through August of 2001, with little gain.
===================================================
The Taliban simply was not interested in becoming part of the deal.
==================================================================
It was at this point, according to Brisard and Dasique,
that the story takes a darker and more dangerous turn.
Pakistani news agencies reported in
==================================
the weeks before September 11th
================================
that America had threatened war against the Taliban
=================================================
if they did not agree to the pipeline deal.
==========================================
"Accept our carpet of gold,"
===========================
the Bush administration is reported to have said,
================================================
"or be buried under a carpet of bombs."
=====================================
At the same time, John O'Neill was quitting his job in protest.
==============================================================
A Deputy Director of the FBI,
=============================
O'Neill was America's chief bin Laden hunter.
=============================================
He had been in charge of the investigations into the bin Laden-
connected bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993,
the destruction of an American troop barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996,
the African embassy bombings in 1998, and
the attack upon the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.
Simply put, no one person in America's counter-terrorism apparatus
knew more about Osama bin Laden than John O'Neill.
Two weeks before September 11th, John O'Neill left the FBI in anger
=================================================================
and disgust. He believed his government was actively hindering his
ability to pursue dangerous "Islamic terrorists"
because such investigations were discomforting Mideast regimes
=============================================================
like the Taliban that were being courted by American petroleum
interests.
========================================================================
Brisard and Dasique quote O'Neill as saying,:
"The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were
U.S. oil corporate interests, and
the role played by Saudi Arabia in it."
=======================================
Connections between the Taliban and Saudi Arabia,
================================================
a nation bin Laden and a dozen of the 9/11 hijackers once called home,
=====================================================================
are too glaring to ignore.
===========================
Upon leaving the FBI, O'Neill took a position as
head of security for the World Trade Center, and
============================================
was killed doing his job on September 11th.
============================================
The implications of all this are profoundly disturbing.
If Brisard and Dasique are to be believed,
the Bush administration was actively courting the Taliban,
=========================================================
protectors of Osama bin Laden,
=============================
on behalf of Unocal.
===================
That courtship gave way to "dire threats of war",
believable enough that the September 11th attack
could well be seen as a pre-emptive strike by
==============================================
bin Laden and the Taliban.
==========================
Bin Laden's ability to successfully attack the continental
United States was made far easier by the Bush administration's
standing-down of American anti-terrorism agents like John O'Neill,
so as to
avoid discomforting the very regimes they were seeking
======================================================
to bring into the pipeline deal.
===============================
In light of Brisard and Dasique's allegations,
the last several days have offered a number of
corroborating news stories.
=========================
A twelve year veteran agent with the FBI named
==============================================
Robert G. Wright, Jr.
====================
has filed suit in Washington D.C.'s District Court
alleging that the agency willfully ignored
===========================================
terrorist threats from Hamas.
============================
According to Wright, the FBI intentionally thwarted his efforts
to curtail Hamas activities in America that threatened American
citizens.
Wright's lawsuit came one day after Congress chastised the FBI for
failing to look into warnings from Arizona agents about suspicious
Arab
men seeking flight training at American aviation schools.
Wright has compiled a 500-page manuscript detailing the
======================================================
FBI's failures on the anti-terrorism front entitled,
"Fatal Betrayals of the Intelligence Mission."
=============================================
If his work is allowed to be published,
it may well authenticate concerns voiced by
John O'Neill before his death.
As it stands, the fact that an FBI agent has brought suit against the
agency for intentionally ignoring terrorist threats against America
lends a great deal of credence to the claims levied by Brisard and
Dasique.
The American television news magazine '60 Minutes'
has entered the fray, recently airing a program that
questioned the FBI's failure to follow up on a variety of leads
prior to 9/11 that, if pursued, may well have thwarted the plot.
Meanwhile, the interim leader of Afghanistan,
=============================================
Harmid Karzai,
=============
will announce later this month the inking of a deal
==================================================
between his nation, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan,
to run an 850 kilometer pipeline through all
three nations for
the purpose of exploiting natural gas in the Caspian Sea region.
===============================================================
Unocal has been tapped as the lead company for the project,
as it has always espoused the viability of the deal
"once stability was returned to Afghanistan. "
=============================================
Representing a consortium of companies from:
===========================================
Saudi Arabia,
============
Pakistan,
Turkmenistan,
South Korea and
Japan,
Unocal expects the pipeline will bring 30 billion cubic meters
==============================================================
of gas to market each year.
===========================
Of course, this deal would never have been possible
without the obliteration of the Taliban
=======================================
by American military forces, and
===========================
the subsequent installation of Karzai as interim leader of
Afghanistan.
======================================================================
A former Unocal consultant in the days *before* leadership
was thrust upon him, Karzai has been greatly helped in
reassembling Afghanistan by former Unocal consultant, Zalmay
Khalilzad,
======================================================================
who was *appointed U.S. special envoy to that nation*
====================================================
the day after Karzai was sworn in.
==================================
In the aftermath of September 11th,
we were told the terror was brought upon us by
people who hate our freedom and resent our way of life.
=========================================================
In point of fact, however, it appears
the attacks came as part of a broader game.
===========================================
The Bush administration willingly entered parley with the Taliban,
==================================================================
despite their care and feeding of wanted killer Osama bin Laden,
===============================================================
so as to further the goals on an American petroleum interest.
===========================================================
In the process,
they watered down American anti-terrorism measures to such a degree
that a Deputy Director was compelled to quit in protest, and
another has since filed suit against the agency.
Did the threats of war levied against the Taliban on behalf of Unocal
====================== ===================================
spur Osama bin Laden into murderous action on behalf of his host
nation?
=======================================================================
Was his attack made easier because the Bush administration willfully
weakened our intelligence apparatus so as to avoid offending potential
client states?
Is it possible that the dust and ruin in New York and Washington are
byproducts of a pipeline deal that was pursued before the attacks, and
has been allowed to come to fruition in the aftermath?
=====================================================
Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasique would have us believe so.
Recent news has vigorously bolstered their allegations.
=====================================================
If further revelations come to light,
there will indeed be hell to pay.
William Rivers Pitt is freelance writer and a regular contributor to
t r u t h o u t.
This is the fourth installment of Hell to Pay :
(GO TO THE ABOVE URL TO GET THE OTHER 3)
| Hell to Pay Part I |
Hell to Pay Part II |
Hell to Pay Part III |
Hell to Pay Part IIII |
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| User: "Dharmananda" |
|
| Title: Re: BUSH-IS A PRESIDENT WHO LIES-IMPEACHABLE? |
30 Oct 2004 03:15:09 PM |
|
|
Let's vote him out first. I think he can probably be impeached after he's
left the office, and I think it will probably be done, because it would be
the best way to get some allies back
Justice-for-all wrote:
FindLaw | Legal Professionals | Students | Business | Public | News
E-mail@Justice.com | MY FindLaw
Print This | Email This
----
Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction:
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
========================================================
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Jun. 06, 2003
President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking
Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American
military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements
about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical
actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the
past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues
like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that
they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless,
perhaps, they start another war.
That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are
answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of
President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security,
are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A
president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it.
President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam
forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's
false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.
Frankly, I hope the WMDs are found, for it will end the matter.
Clearly, the story of the missing WMDs is far from over. And it is too
early, of course, to draw conclusions. But it is not too early to
explore the relevant issues.
President Bush's Statements On Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Readers may not recall exactly what President Bush said about weapons
of mass destruction; I certainly didn't. Thus, I have compiled these
statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he had, indeed, been
as explicit and declarative as I had recalled.
Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used
for the production of biological weapons."
United Nations Address
September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is
rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized
Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the
dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio Address
October 5, 2002
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological
weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical
agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing
fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to
disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're
concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions
targeting the United States."
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear
weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi
nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his
nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is
rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear
program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength
aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which
are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the
materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX
nerve agent."
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt
that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most
lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003
Should The President Get The Benefit Of The Doubt?
When these statements were made, Bush's let-me-mince-no-words posture
was convincing to many Americans. Yet much of the rest of the world,
and many other Americans, doubted them.
As Bush's veracity was being debated at the United Nations, it was
also being debated on campuses - including those where I happened to
be lecturing at the time.
On several occasions, students asked me the following question: Should
they believe the President of the United States? My answer was that
they should give the President the benefit of the doubt, for several
reasons deriving from the usual procedures that have operated in every
modern White House and that, I assumed, had to be operating in the
Bush White House, too.
First, I assured the students that these statements had all been
carefully considered and crafted. Presidential statements are the
result of a process, not a moment's thought. White House speechwriters
process raw information, and their statements are passed on to senior
aides who have both substantive knowledge and political insights. And
this all occurs before the statement ever reaches the President for
his own review and possible revision.
Second, I explained that - at least in every White House and
administration with which I was familiar, from Truman to Clinton -
statements with national security implications were the most carefully
considered of all. The White House is aware that, in making these
statements, the President is speaking not only to the nation, but also
to the world.
Third, I pointed out to the students, these statements are typically
corrected rapidly if they are later found to be false. And in this
case, far from backpedaling from the President's more extreme claims,
Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer had actually, at times, been
even more emphatic than the President had. For example, on January 9,
2003, Fleischer stated, during his press briefing, "We know for a fact
that there are weapons there."
In addition, others in the Administration were similarly quick to back
the President up, in some cases with even more unequivocal statements.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly claimed that Saddam
had WMDs - and even went so far as to claim he knew "where they are;
they're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
Finally, I explained to the students that the political risk was so
great that, to me, it was inconceivable that Bush would make these
statements if he didn't have damn solid intelligence to back him up.
Presidents do not stick their necks out only to have them chopped off
by political opponents on an issue as important as this, and if there
was any doubt, I suggested, Bush's political advisers would be telling
him to hedge. Rather than stating a matter as fact, he would be say:
"I have been advised," or "Our intelligence reports strongly suggest,"
or some such similar hedge. But Bush had not done so.
So what are we now to conclude if Bush's statements are found, indeed,
to be as grossly inaccurate as they currently appear to have been?
After all, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and given
Bush's statements, they should not have been very hard to find - for
they existed in large quantities, "thousands of tons" of chemical
weapons alone. Moreover, according to the statements, telltale
facilities, groups of scientists who could testify, and production
equipment also existed.
So where is all that? And how can we reconcile the White House's
unequivocal statements with the fact that they may not exist?
There are two main possibilities. One that something is seriously
wrong within the Bush White House's national security operations. That
seems difficult to believe. The other is that the President has
deliberately misled the nation, and the world.
A Desperate Search For WMDs Has So Far Yielded Little, If Any, Fruit
Even before formally declaring war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the
President had dispatched American military special forces into Iraq to
search for weapons of mass destruction, which he knew would provide
the primary justification for Operation Freedom. None were found.
Throughout Operation Freedom's penetration of Iraq and drive toward
Baghdad, the search for WMDs continued. None were found.
As the coalition forces gained control of Iraqi cities and
countryside, special search teams were dispatched to look for WMDs.
None were found.
During the past two and a half months, according to reliable news
reports, military patrols have visited over 300 suspected WMD sites
throughout Iraq. None of the prohibited weapons were found there.
British and American Press Reaction to the Missing WMDs
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is also under serious attack in
England, which he dragged into the war unwillingly, based on the
missing WMDs. In Britain, the missing WMDs are being treated as
scandalous; so far, the reaction in the U.S. has been milder.
New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has taken Bush sharply to
task, asserting that it is "long past time for this administration to
be held accountable." "The public was told that Saddam posed an
imminent threat," Krugman argued. "If that claim was fraudulent," he
continued, "the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in
American political history - worse than Watergate, worse than
Iran-contra." But most media outlets have reserved judgment as the
search for WMDs in Iraq continues.
Still, signs do not look good. Last week, the Pentagon announced it
was shifting its search from looking for WMD sites, to looking for
people who can provide leads as to where the missing WMDs might be.
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
John Bolton, while offering no new evidence, assured Congress that
WMDs will indeed be found. And he advised that a new unit called the
Iraq Survey Group, composed of some 1400 experts and technicians from
around the world, is being deployed to assist in the searching.
But, as Time magazine reported, the leads are running out. According
to Time, the Marine general in charge explained that "[w]e've been to
virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and
Baghdad," and remarked flatly, "They're simply not there."
Perhaps most troubling, the President has failed to provide any
explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements,
yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there
an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be?
Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently misinterpreted? Or
was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?
The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and
reality only increases the sense that the President's misstatements
may actually have been intentional lies.
Investigating The Iraqi War Intelligence Reports
Even now, while the jury is still out as to whether intentional
misconduct occurred, the President has a serious credibility problem.
Newsweek magazine posed the key questions: "If America has entered a
new age of pre-emption --when it must strike first because it cannot
afford to find out later if terrorists possess nuclear or biological
weapons--exact intelligence is critical. How will the United States
take out a mad despot or a nuclear bomb hidden in a cave if the CIA
can't say for sure where they are? And how will Bush be able to
maintain support at home and abroad?"
In an apparent attempt to bolster the President's credibility, and his
own, Secretary Rumsfeld himself has now called for a Defense
Department investigation into what went wrong with the pre-war
intelligence. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd finds this effort
about on par with O. J.'s looking for his wife's killer. But there may
be a difference: Unless the members of Administration can find someone
else to blame - informants, surveillance technology, lower-level
personnel, you name it - they may not escape fault themselves.
Congressional committees are also looking into the pre-war
intelligence collection and evaluation. Senator John Warner (R-VA),
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his committee
and the Senate Intelligence Committee would jointly investigate the
situation. And the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
plans an investigation.
These investigations are certainly appropriate, for there is potent
evidence of either a colossal intelligence failure or misconduct - and
either would be a serious problem. When the best case scenario seems
to be mere incompetence, investigations certainly need to be made.
Senator Bob Graham - a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee - told CNN's Aaron Brown, that while he still hopes they
find WMDs or at least evidence thereof, he has also contemplated three
other possible alternative scenarios:
One is that [the WMDs] were spirited out of Iraq, which maybe is the
worst of all possibilities, because now the very thing that we were
trying to avoid, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, could
be in the hands of dozens of groups. Second, that we had bad
intelligence. Or third, that the intelligence was satisfactory but
that it was manipulated, so as just to present to the American people
and to the world those things that made the case for the necessity of
war against Iraq.
Senator Graham seems to believe there is a serious chance that it is
the final scenario that reflects reality. Indeed, Graham told CNN
"there's been a pattern of manipulation by this administration."
Graham has good reason to complain. According to the New York Times,
he was one of the few members of the Senate who saw the national
intelligence estimate that was the basis for Bush's decisions. After
reviewing it, Senator Graham requested that the Bush Administration
declassify the information before the Senate voted on the
Administration's resolution requesting use of the military in Iraq.
But rather than do so, CIA Director Tenet merely sent Graham a letter
discussing the findings. Graham then complained that Tenet's letter
only addressed "findings that supported the administration's position
on Iraq," and ignored information that raised questions about
intelligence. In short, Graham suggested that the Administration, by
cherrypicking only evidence to its own liking, had manipulated the
information to support its conclusion.
Recent statements by one of the high-level officials privy to the
decisionmaking process that lead to the Iraqi war also strongly
suggests manipulation, if not misuse of the intelligence agencies.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, during an interview with
Sam Tannenhaus of Vanity Fair magazine, said: "The truth is that for
reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we
settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was
weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." More recently,
Wolfowitz added what most have believed all along, that the reason we
went after Iraq is that "[t]he country swims on a sea of oil."
Worse than Watergate? A Potential Huge Scandal If WMDs Are Still
Missing
Krugman is right to suggest a possible comparison to Watergate. In the
three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I
have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush
Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented
intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support,
military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a
monstrous misdeed.
As I remarked in an earlier column, this Administration may be due for
a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, it
was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's
doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war
based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate
misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a
high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also
be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal
anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the
United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any
purpose."
It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was
about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the
CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that
manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly
is a serious abuse of presidential power.
Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his
political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same
kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse
national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony
reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us
hope that is not the case.
What Do You Think? Message Boards
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former Counsel to the President
of the United States.
Company | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer Copyright © 1994-2004 FindLaw
--
Triratanam sharanam gaccami
Dharmananda
http://mysite.verizon.net/res6zeam/american-buddhist/news.html
.
|
|
|
| User: "JM" |
|
| Title: Re: BUSH-IS A PRESIDENT WHO LIES-IMPEACHABLE? |
30 Oct 2004 03:20:50 PM |
|
|
Who the hell wants France, Germany and the others as an allies. All any of
them
want to do is sell arms and get cheap fuel.
"Dharmananda" <Nil@neph.net> wrote in message
news:1309065.lePYuRsOO6@news.verizon.net...
Let's vote him out first. I think he can probably be impeached after he's
left the office, and I think it will probably be done, because it would be
the best way to get some allies back
Justice-for-all wrote:
FindLaw | Legal Professionals | Students | Business | Public | News
E-mail@Justice.com | MY FindLaw
Print This | Email This
----
Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction:
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
========================================================
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Jun. 06, 2003
President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking
Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American
military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements
about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical
actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the
past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues
like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that
they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam
Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless,
perhaps, they start another war.
That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are
answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of
President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security,
are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A
president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it.
President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam
forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's
false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.
Frankly, I hope the WMDs are found, for it will end the matter.
Clearly, the story of the missing WMDs is far from over. And it is too
early, of course, to draw conclusions. But it is not too early to
explore the relevant issues.
President Bush's Statements On Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Readers may not recall exactly what President Bush said about weapons
of mass destruction; I certainly didn't. Thus, I have compiled these
statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he had, indeed, been
as explicit and declarative as I had recalled.
Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used
for the production of biological weapons."
United Nations Address
September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is
rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized
Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the
dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio Address
October 5, 2002
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological
weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical
agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing
fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to
disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're
concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions
targeting the United States."
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear
weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi
nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his
nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is
rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear
program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength
aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which
are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the
materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX
nerve agent."
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt
that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most
lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003
Should The President Get The Benefit Of The Doubt?
When these statements were made, Bush's let-me-mince-no-words posture
was convincing to many Americans. Yet much of the rest of the world,
and many other Americans, doubted them.
As Bush's veracity was being debated at the United Nations, it was
also being debated on campuses - including those where I happened to
be lecturing at the time.
On several occasions, students asked me the following question: Should
they believe the President of the United States? My answer was that
they should give the President the benefit of the doubt, for several
reasons deriving from the usual procedures that have operated in every
modern White House and that, I assumed, had to be operating in the
Bush White House, too.
First, I assured the students that these statements had all been
carefully considered and crafted. Presidential statements are the
result of a process, not a moment's thought. White House speechwriters
process raw information, and their statements are passed on to senior
aides who have both substantive knowledge and political insights. And
this all occurs before the statement ever reaches the President for
his own review and possible revision.
Second, I explained that - at least in every White House and
administration with which I was familiar, from Truman to Clinton -
statements with national security implications were the most carefully
considered of all. The White House is aware that, in making these
statements, the President is speaking not only to the nation, but also
to the world.
Third, I pointed out to the students, these statements are typically
corrected rapidly if they are later found to be false. And in this
case, far from backpedaling from the President's more extreme claims,
Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer had actually, at times, been
even more emphatic than the President had. For example, on January 9,
2003, Fleischer stated, during his press briefing, "We know for a fact
that there are weapons there."
In addition, others in the Administration were similarly quick to back
the President up, in some cases with even more unequivocal statements.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly claimed that Saddam
had WMDs - and even went so far as to claim he knew "where they are;
they're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
Finally, I explained to the students that the political risk was so
great that, to me, it was inconceivable that Bush would make these
statements if he didn't have damn solid intelligence to back him up.
Presidents do not stick their necks out only to have them chopped off
by political opponents on an issue as important as this, and if there
was any doubt, I suggested, Bush's political advisers would be telling
him to hedge. Rather than stating a matter as fact, he would be say:
"I have been advised," or "Our intelligence reports strongly suggest,"
or some such similar hedge. But Bush had not done so.
So what are we now to conclude if Bush's statements are found, indeed,
to be as grossly inaccurate as they currently appear to have been?
After all, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and given
Bush's statements, they should not have been very hard to find - for
they existed in large quantities, "thousands of tons" of chemical
weapons alone. Moreover, according to the statements, telltale
facilities, groups of scientists who could testify, and production
equipment also existed.
So where is all that? And how can we reconcile the White House's
unequivocal statements with the fact that they may not exist?
There are two main possibilities. One that something is seriously
wrong within the Bush White House's national security operations. That
seems difficult to believe. The other is that the President has
deliberately misled the nation, and the world.
A Desperate Search For WMDs Has So Far Yielded Little, If Any, Fruit
Even before formally declaring war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the
President had dispatched American military special forces into Iraq to
search for weapons of mass destruction, which he knew would provide
the primary justification for Operation Freedom. None were found.
Throughout Operation Freedom's penetration of Iraq and drive toward
Baghdad, the search for WMDs continued. None were found.
As the coalition forces gained control of Iraqi cities and
countryside, special search teams were dispatched to look for WMDs.
None were found.
During the past two and a half months, according to reliable news
reports, military patrols have visited over 300 suspected WMD sites
throughout Iraq. None of the prohibited weapons were found there.
British and American Press Reaction to the Missing WMDs
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is also under serious attack in
England, which he dragged into the war unwillingly, based on the
missing WMDs. In Britain, the missing WMDs are being treated as
scandalous; so far, the reaction in the U.S. has been milder.
New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has taken Bush sharply to
task, asserting that it is "long past time for this administration to
be held accountable." "The public was told that Saddam posed an
imminent threat," Krugman argued. "If that claim was fraudulent," he
continued, "the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in
American political history - worse than Watergate, worse than
Iran-contra." But most media outlets have reserved judgment as the
search for WMDs in Iraq continues.
Still, signs do not look good. Last week, the Pentagon announced it
was shifting its search from looking for WMD sites, to looking for
people who can provide leads as to where the missing WMDs might be.
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
John Bolton, while offering no new evidence, assured Congress that
WMDs will indeed be found. And he advised that a new unit called the
Iraq Survey Group, composed of some 1400 experts and technicians from
around the world, is being deployed to assist in the searching.
But, as Time magazine reported, the leads are running out. According
to Time, the Marine general in charge explained that "[w]e've been to
virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and
Baghdad," and remarked flatly, "They're simply not there."
Perhaps most troubling, the President has failed to provide any
explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements,
yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there
an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be?
Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently misinterpreted? Or
was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?
The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and
reality only increases the sense that the President's misstatements
may actually have been intentional lies.
Investigating The Iraqi War Intelligence Reports
Even now, while the jury is still out as to whether intentional
misconduct occurred, the President has a serious credibility problem.
Newsweek magazine posed the key questions: "If America has entered a
new age of pre-emption --when it must strike first because it cannot
afford to find out later if terrorists possess nuclear or biological
weapons--exact intelligence is critical. How will the United States
take out a mad despot or a nuclear bomb hidden in a cave if the CIA
can't say for sure where they are? And how will Bush be able to
maintain support at home and abroad?"
In an apparent attempt to bolster the President's credibility, and his
own, Secretary Rumsfeld himself has now called for a Defense
Department investigation into what went wrong with the pre-war
intelligence. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd finds this effort
about on par with O. J.'s looking for his wife's killer. But there may
be a difference: Unless the members of Administration can find someone
else to blame - informants, surveillance technology, lower-level
personnel, you name it - they may not escape fault themselves.
Congressional committees are also looking into the pre-war
intelligence collection and evaluation. Senator John Warner (R-VA),
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his committee
and the Senate Intelligence Committee would jointly investigate the
situation. And the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
plans an investigation.
These investigations are certainly appropriate, for there is potent
evidence of either a colossal intelligence failure or misconduct - and
either would be a serious problem. When the best case scenario seems
to be mere incompetence, investigations certainly need to be made.
Senator Bob Graham - a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee - told CNN's Aaron Brown, that while he still hopes they
find WMDs or at least evidence thereof, he has also contemplated three
other possible alternative scenarios:
One is that [the WMDs] were spirited out of Iraq, which maybe is the
worst of all possibilities, because now the very thing that we were
trying to avoid, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, could
be in the hands of dozens of groups. Second, that we had bad
intelligence. Or third, that the intelligence was satisfactory but
that it was manipulated, so as just to present to the American people
and to the world those things that made the case for the necessity of
war against Iraq.
Senator Graham seems to believe there is a serious chance that it is
the final scenario that reflects reality. Indeed, Graham told CNN
"there's been a pattern of manipulation by this administration."
Graham has good reason to complain. According to the New York Times,
he was one of the few members of the Senate who saw the national
intelligence estimate that was the basis for Bush's decisions. After
reviewing it, Senator Graham requested that the Bush Administration
declassify the information before the Senate voted on the
Administration's resolution requesting use of the military in Iraq.
But rather than do so, CIA Director Tenet merely sent Graham a letter
discussing the findings. Graham then complained that Tenet's letter
only addressed "findings that supported the administration's position
on Iraq," and ignored information that raised questions about
intelligence. In short, Graham suggested that the Administration, by
cherrypicking only evidence to its own liking, had manipulated the
information to support its conclusion.
Recent statements by one of the high-level officials privy to the
decisionmaking process that lead to the Iraqi war also strongly
suggests manipulation, if not misuse of the intelligence agencies.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, during an interview with
Sam Tannenhaus of Vanity Fair magazine, said: "The truth is that for
reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we
settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was
weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." More recently,
Wolfowitz added what most have believed all along, that the reason we
went after Iraq is that "[t]he country swims on a sea of oil."
Worse than Watergate? A Potential Huge Scandal If WMDs Are Still
Missing
Krugman is right to suggest a possible comparison to Watergate. In the
three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I
have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush
Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented
intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support,
military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a
monstrous misdeed.
As I remarked in an earlier column, this Administration may be due for
a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, it
was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's
doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war
based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate
misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a
high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also
be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal
anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the
United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any
purpose."
It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was
about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the
CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that
manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly
is a serious abuse of presidential power.
Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his
political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same
kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse
national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony
reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us
hope that is not the case.
What Do You Think? Message Boards
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John Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former Counsel to the President
of the United States.
Company | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer Copyright © 1994-2004 FindLaw
--
Triratanam sharanam gaccami
Dharmananda
http://mysite.verizon.net/res6zeam/american-buddhist/news.html
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| User: "Dharmananda" |
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| Title: Re: BUSH-IS A PRESIDENT WHO LIES-IMPEACHABLE? |
30 Oct 2004 03:33:10 PM |
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I know how difficult this is for the Repug mind to comprehend, but you need
allies to survive as a nation on this planet. If you just fight everybody,
they all just gang up on you finally, and then you're dead.
I know that Repugs hate books and education and all that liberal stuff, but
wiwthout them you're just a clueless newbie in the area of geopolitics.
You're also underfoot. Go chew a bone or something.
JM wrote:
Who the hell wants France, Germany and the others as an allies. All any
of them
want to do is sell arms and get cheap fuel.
"Dharmananda" <Nil@neph.net> wrote in message
news:1309065.lePYuRsOO6@news.verizon.net...
Let's vote him out first. I think he can probably be impeached after
he's left the office, and I think it will probably be done, because it
would be the best way to get some allies back
--
Triratanam sharanam gaccami
Dharmananda
http://mysite.verizon.net/res6zeam/american-buddhist/news.html
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