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Case for Impeachment

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Kristina
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« on: January 21, 2007, 04:44:01 am »

The case for impeachment of President George W. Bush
From SourceWatch


The case for impeachment of President George W. Bush is outlined below in books, websites, documents, articles, and SourceWatch Resources related to what are believed to be Bush's impeachable offenses.

Constitutional Basis

"Bribery is one of two crimes cited in the Constitution as grounds for impeachment - and the Big Pharma/Medicaid and Big Tobacco/lawsuit settlement cases may qualify." [1] (http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0620-22.htm) as may off-record settlements with the financial industry after the Enron collapse.

Ramsey Clark's Articles of Impeachment
• Former Attorney GeneralRamsey Clark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsey_Clark)'s Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft:
1. Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of U.S. G.I.s.
2. Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.
3. Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.
4. Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.
5. Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
6. Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.
7. Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.
8. Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."
9. Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.
10. Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.
11. Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.
12. Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.
13. Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.
14. Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.
15. Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."
16. Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.
17. Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.
18. Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.
• Source: Impeach Bush, 2003 (http://www.impeachbush.org/).
• survives here (http://thirdworldtraveler.com/Politicians/Articles_Impeach_Bush.html)
Criminal Offense of Exposing Valerie Plame
See:
• Treasongate: Beyond Karl Rove
• Elizabeth de la Vega's "Smoking Guns and Red Herrings. What Should We Expect Now that Fitzgerald Has Announced the Indictment of Lewis 'Scooter' Libby?" (http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=32241) and "The White House Criminal Conspiracy" (http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=32550) posted by Tom Dispatch, October 28 and 29, 2005.

The Global Detention System

Rendition

Interrogation Techniques at Guantanamo Bay
ABC News reported June 15, 2005, [2] (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=852458) that "interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in 2002 triggered concerns among senior Pentagon officials that they could face criminal prosecution under U.S. anti-torture laws ...
"Notes from a series of meetings at the Pentagon in early 2003 -- obtained by ABC News -- show that Alberto Mora, general counsel of the Navy, warned his superiors that they might be breaking the law.
"During a January 2003 meeting involving top Pentagon lawyer William Haynes II and other officials, the memo shows that Mora warned that 'use of coercive techniques ... has military, legal, and political implication ... has international implication ... and exposes us to liability and criminal prosecution.'
"Mora's deep concerns about interrogations at Guantanamo have been known, but not his warning that top officials could go to prison.
"In another meeting held March 8, 2003, the group of top Pentagon lawyers concluded -- according to the memo -- 'we need a presidential letter approving the use of the controversial interrogation to cover those who may be called upon to use them.'
"No such letter was issued."
On June 15, 2005, "the White House insisted that tactics used at Guantanamo Bay are now -- and have been -- legal.
"'All interrogation techniques that have been approved are lawful and consistent with our obligations,' said White House press secretary Scott McClellan."
[]
Lying to Congress about need for preemptive war in Iraq
• "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." --Judgement of the Nuremberg War Trial (http://home.earthlink.net/~platter/nuremberg/judgement-nazi-regime.html#supreme-intl-crime).
• "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 (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=18&sec=371), which renders it a felony 'to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.'" --John W. Dean
• Justifications for the US-Iraq 2003 war: "preemption" or "preemptive war".
• The secret Downing Street memo, July 23, 2002.
• Letter to George W. Bush Signed by 88 Members of Congress (http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/letters/bushsecretmemoltr5505.pdf), May 5, 2005, re the "troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action."
• The leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, July 21, 2002: "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action".
• Downing Street Memo Campaign.
• George W. Bush: The War President.

Pre-Preemptive War in Iraq
Tom Regan wrote in the June 30, 2005, Christian Science Monitor that the U.S. and Britain commenced a secret air attack campaign in Iraq as early as mid-2002, which documents such as the Downing Street memo may show. [3] (http://csmweb2.emcweb.com/2005/0630/dailyUpdate.html)
"Michael Smith, defense writer for the Sunday Times of London wrote (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1669640,00.html) this past Sunday [June 26, 2005] that 'The American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.' (This bombing capaign is referred to in the Downing Street memo.)," Regan stated.
The Raw Story reported June 27, 2005, that "A U.S. general who commanded the U.S. allied air forces in Iraq has confirmed that the U.S. and Britain conducted a massive secret bombing campaign before the U.S. actually declared war on Iraq. ... While the Downing Street documents collectively raise disturbing questions about how the Bush administration led the United States into Iraq, including allegations that 'intelligence was being fixed,' other questions have emerged about when the US and British led allies actually began the Iraq war." [4] (http://rawstory.com/news/2005/The_unofficial_war_U.S._and_Britain_led_massive_air_campaign_before_Iraq_war_be_0627.html)

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the prime training ground for foreign terrorists


Destruction of Evidence from Ground Zero at the World Trade Center

Coverup of the WTC (9/11) Investigation

Plundering the Treasury

Social Security Trust Funds

Political Will
Nothing happens in politics without a "political will" to make it so. Political will to question George W. Bush is not going to come from his partisan legislators on the hill, or from his benefactors in corporate media, but there are . other sources available for garnering a momentum

Quotes
• "All public policy should revolve around the principle that individuals are responsible for what they say and do." --George W. Bush, 1994. [5] (http://g0lem.net/vortal/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9)
• "Impeachment is the direct constitutional means for removing a President, Vice President or other civil officers of the United States who has acted or threatened acts that are serious offenses against the Constitution, its system of government, or the rule of law, or that are conventional crimes of such a serious nature that they would injure the Presidency if there was no removal." --Ramsey Clark, July 18, 2003. [6] (http://www.votetoimpeach.org/)
• "Impeachment appears six times in the U.S. Constitution. The Founders weren't concerned with anything more than with impeachment because they had lived under King George III and had in 1776 accused the king of all the things that George W. Bush wants to do: Usurpation of the power of the people; Being above the law; Criminal abuse of authority." --Ramsey Clark, July 18, 2003. [7] (http://www.votetoimpeach.org/)
• "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on." --George W. Bush, November 4, 2004. [8] (http://home.comcast.net/~cyroth/politics.html)

Books
• John Bonifaz, Warrior King: The Case for Impeaching George Bush (2003 book) (ISBN 1560256060).
• Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (2004 book) (ISBN 0743260244).
• John W. Dean, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush (2004 book).
• Paul O'Neill, The Price of Loyalty. George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill (book 2004).
• Joseph C. Wilson IV, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity (2004 book).
• Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (2004 book).

External Links

Articles & Commentary

Pro-Impeachment Websites
• Bush Occupation (http://www.bushoccupation.com).com.
• CODEPINK4PEACE (http://www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?list=type&type=24).org: "Indict President Bush. We couldn't stop him from taking office, but we can ensure that his presidency ends as the public disgrace that it is."
• Impeach Bush (http://www.impeachbush.tv/).tv.
• Impeach Bush Now (http://www.impeach-bush-now.org/).org.
• Impeach Central (http://elandslide.org/elandslide/petition.cfm?campaign=impeach&refer=home) website.
• Impeach George W. Bush Petition (http://www.petitiononline.com/ddc12/petition.html), petitiononline.com.
• "Stop the War. Impeach Bush ... Cheney, Rumsfeld & Ashcroft! (http://www.rise4news.net/impeach.html), rise4news.net.
• The Four Reasons (http://www.thefourreasons.org/).org; The Four Reasons for Responsible Citizenship website.
• Topple Bush (http://www.topplebush.com/index.shtml).com.
• Vote to Impeach (http://www.votetoimpeach.org/).org.

Other Websites
• Wiki the Presidency.org (http://www.wikithepresidency.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) created by People For the American Way.

Documents
• 'Impeachment Documents Relating to a U.S. President," (http://www.lib.auburn.edu/madd/docs/impeach.html) Ralph Brown Draughon Library.
• "Guide to Impeachment and Censure Materials Online," (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/impeach.htm) Jurist website.
• "George W. Bush, et al., Petitioners v. Albert Gore, Jr., et al. on writ of certiorari to the Florida Supreme Court (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=00-949), December 12, 2000. "Case Law" at FindLaw.com. See Bush v. Gore (http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Bush_v._Gore) in the dKosopedia.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_case_for_impeachment_of_President_George_W._Bush
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Kristina
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« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2007, 01:45:16 am »

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/DOJdocsPt1070313.pdf
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Kristina
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« Reply #2 on: March 16, 2007, 01:48:43 am »

Emails Detail White House Plan to Oust US Attorneys
    By Richard A. Serrano,
    The Los Angeles Times

    Wednesday 14 March 2007


    Washington - Just weeks after President Bush was inaugurated for a second term in January 2005, his White House and the Department of Justice had pretty much settled on a plan to "push out" some of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys.

    But which ones?

    D. Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, came up with a checklist. He rated each of the U.S. attorneys with criteria that appeared to value political allegiance as much as job performance.

    He recommended retaining "strong U.S. Attorneys who have ... exhibited loyalty to the President and Attorney General." He suggested "removing weak U.S. Attorneys who have ... chafed against Administration initiatives."

    Those words are enshrined in some 150 pages of e-mails and other documents turned over Tuesday by the White House to the Senate and House Judiciary committees. They are looking into charges that the firings were done for political reasons rather than for performance, as the Justice Department has said.

    The documents offer an extraordinary look at political tactics within the Bush administration, and show the White House working closely with the Justice Department to justify the firings. The administration even adopted contingency plans for how to "quiet" anyone who complained. And it was the administration that gave the final go-ahead to fire eight prosecutors, all of them Bush appointees.

    The documents show that in one case, officials were eager to free up the prosecutor's slot in Little Rock, Ark., so it could be filled by Timothy Griffin, a GOP operative close to White House political guru Karl Rove - at all costs.

    "We should gum this to death," Sampson e-mailed Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House. He said officials should talk up Griffin's appointment and try to "forestall" any criticism from Capitol Hill. Just "run out the clock" on any objections, he said.

    Elsewhere, the documents describe the office of Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who was pushing for the removal of the prosecutor in Albuquerque, as "happy as a clam" that David C. Iglesias was fired.

    But the material also noted that in Nevada, where U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden of Las Vegas was forced out, Republican Sen. John Ensign was "very unhappy" about the ouster, "very unhappy about its timing, and didn't understand the urgency."

    It also made clear that in San Diego, U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was fired for not being tougher on illegal immigration. Sampson told Kelley that Justice had a "real problem" with Lam. He later asked William Mercer, the acting associate attorney general, whether officials "ever called Carol Lam and woodshedded her re immigration enforcement."

    The disclosure of Sampson's aggressive role in the episodes came as Gonzales announced on Tuesday that he was stepping down as chief of staff. Sampson had worked for Gonzales both at the White House and in the attorney general's office.

    His dual role - like Gonzales' - in wearing both White House and Justice hats made him a pivotal character in the way the eight prosecutors were selected and their firings were handled, and in how the department tried to calm allegations of improper political influence.

    Indeed, even as he was orchestrating the removal of the eight prosecutors, Sampson reportedly was hoping to land himself back in his home state of Utah as the U.S. attorney there, although the prosecutor there was not among those fired.

    Initially, Sampson and then-White House counsel Harriet Miers mused about firing all 93 U.S. attorneys, wiping the slate clean and replacing them all with new appointees at the start of Bush's second term. Such a broad gesture would have sprinkled political gratitude to operatives like Griffin of Arkansas, who had worked in the 2004 campaign, they thought.

    But they soon backed off that idea as too disruptive. So they began making lists of individuals, and eventually settled on the final eight.

    In January 2006, Sampson sent a confidential memo to Miers and her deputy in the White House, William Kelley, outlining options.

    He suggested that once the prosecutors were told they were being fired, Justice "could work quietly with the targeted U.S. Attorneys to encourage them to leave government service voluntarily. This," he said, "would allow targeted U.S. attorneys to make arrangements for work in the private sector and 'save face' regarding the reason for leaving office."

    Meanwhile, the administration was slowly gathering evidence to make its move.

    Last July, for instance, Justice Department official Rachel Ward advised the White House that U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton in Arizona was not prosecuting marijuana cases involving less than 500 pounds. His stance had riled then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

    In September of 2006, Brent Ward, head of the Justice Department's obscenity task force, complained to Sampson about Charlton and Bogden.

    "We have two U.S. Attorneys who are unwilling to take good cases we have presented to them," Ward told Sampson. "This is urgent." Ward added that he found this particularly troubling "in light of the AG's (Gonzales') comment ... to 'kick butt and take names' " in prosecuting obscenity cases.

    In New Mexico, Domenici was regularly complaining about Iglesias. He made numerous calls to the White House and the Justice Department, and even phoned Iglesias to inquire about a seemingly stalled corruption investigation against Democrats in New Mexico.

    Domenici has since said he regretted making the call to Iglesias, but that incident most enraged Democrats on Capitol Hill.

    "Sen. Domenici called for the AG (Gonzales) because he wants to discuss the criminal 'docket and caseload' in New Mexico," William Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general, recounted in an e-mail to both White House and Justice officials. "Sen. Domenici offered to come here, talk on the phone, or we could stop in on the senator."

    Later, when Iglesias was one of those fired, Domenici moved quickly to recommend names to the White House for his replacement. "Not even waiting for Iglesias' body to cool," Sampson wryly commented in an e-mail to Goodling seven days after the firing.

    On Sept. 13, a Sampson e-mail listed which prosecutors would be leaving under the headline, "USA (U.S. Attorneys) in the Process of Being Pushed Out." He added that "it will be counterproductive to DOJ operations if we push USAs out and then don't have replacements ready to roll." There was some discussion of adding a ninth name - Gretchen C.F. Shappert, the prosecutor in North Carolina - but she was dropped after Goodling said, "I don't think she merits being included in that group at this time."

    On Dec. 4, the day they were given the "go" for the firings, Sampson told the White House "we need to get some names generated pronto" for replacement prosecutors.

    The next day, he devised a plan where White House and Justice officials would call lawmakers the morning of Dec. 7 to notify them the U.S. attorneys in their states were being fired. Meanwhile, Michael Battle, who until his resignation this month supervised U.S. attorneys, would phone the prosecutors in the afternoon to give them the bad news.

    Sampson also worked up talking points for the group firing. Senators and "Bush political leaders" were to be told that "the administration has determined to give someone else the opportunity to serve as U.S. Attorney for the final two years of the administration."

    The fired prosecutors would be told that the administration would help them in future endeavors. "We will work with you to make sure that there is a smooth transition," they were to be advised.

    Sampson's memo also warned: "Prepare to Withstand Political Upheaval." He said, "U.S. Attorneys desiring to save their jobs likely will make efforts to preserve themselves in office. We should expect these efforts to be strenuous."

    Indeed, most of the ousted prosecutors were stunned. Fanning their ire was a perceived threat by Justice that they not complain about it.

    On Dec. 13, Sampson again e-mailed top Justice and White House officials that things were not going well. "In making the calls," Sampson said, "Battle wasn't clear whether the USAs in question would be permitted to resign, or instead were being fired, and was too abrupt."

    Sampson thought there should be "perhaps a second round of calls." This time, he suggested, Battle should tell them:

    "It's in our interest for you to land on your feet and maintain ... good relations with the department. How can I help?"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031407K.shtml
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Kristina
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« Reply #3 on: March 16, 2007, 01:52:40 am »

Documents on sacking US Attorneys released Michael Roston
Published: Tuesday March 13, 2007 




Documents released to RAW STORY today by the House Judiciary Committee show a Justice Department concerned with "political upheaval" over plans to push out of office some United States Attorneys who were dubbed "holdovers."

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said today that the firings appeared to suggest that the White House was using the US Attorneys as "political pawns," which he warned "undermines their critical work in fighting terrorism and risks subjecting the power of the prosecutor to partisan whims."

"Is it about political cronyism?" Conyers asks. "Is it about partisan pressure on public corruption investigations?"

Conyers promised to conclude a bill in his committee on Thursday to repeal the White House's authority to appoint US Attorneys without Senate confirmation. He also pledged to gain a full understanding of the firings of US Attorneys using his committee's oversight powers.

"We will get to the bottom of this crisis in our Justice Department with or without cooperation," he said. "I have directed my staff to engage with the Justice Department and White House to bring in officials who may have knowledge of these issues for depositions. If they fail to come forward voluntarily, we are prepared to consider further subpoenas."

E-mails suggest political motives in US Attorney sackings


Many of the e-mails were written to various Bush administration staffers by Kyle Sampson, the former Chief of Staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Sampson stepped down Monday after reports of his involvement in helping to remove US Attorneys from office surfaced. The e-mails start as far back as Feb. 2005 and discuss the rationale and strategies for removing US Attorneys from office for a variety of reasons.

A March 2005 attachment sent to former White House Counsel and onetime Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers draws lines through the names of US Attorneys described as "Recommend removing" because they are "ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against administration initiatives."

In Jan. 2006, one e-mail notes that Senator Pete Domenici, the New Mexico Republican who recently had an ethics complaint filed against him, had contacted the Attorney General to "discuss the criminal 'docket and caseload' in New Mexico." The e-mail further includes a detailed report on the activities of the US Attorney for New Mexico, part of which is a lengthy Power Point presentation.

A Sep. 13, 2006 e-mail sent to Miers makes note of five US Attorneys "we now should consider pushing out," as well as one "in the process of being pushed out."

Sampson first makes note of his political concerns about the tactic in this message, saying "I am only in favor of executing...if we really are ready and willing to put in the time necessary to select candidates and get them appointed." The message also refers to sidestepping "home-State senators" and carrying out the plan "at less political cost to the White House."

Four days later, Miers promises to follow up. In her original Sep. 13 query to Sampson, she asks for "current thinking on holdover US attorneys."

On Sept. 20, Brent Ward, current head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, wrote to Sampson and complained, "We have two US attorneys who are unwilling to take good cases we have presented to them." Sampson says replacing them should go through "normal channels."

Nearly two months later, on Nov. 15, Sampson writes to White House staffers again, including Miers, and repeats his concerns with "political upheaval that could result" and refers to circulating it "to Karl's shop," presumably referring to White House political adviser Karl Rove.

This e-mail includes an attachment with a detailed strategy plan for forcing out six US Attorneys in Arizona, California, Michigan, Nevada, Washington, and New Mexico; contacting senators (or the home-state Bush "political-lead" if there is no Republican senator in the state in question); preparations for "political upheaval;" and selection of "interim" candidates, which is followed by the normal US Attorney selection process.

A Dec. 13, 2006, e-mail shows Sampson alerting a variety of Justice Department and Executive Office of the US Attorneys staff to the problems arising from the removal of the Attorneys in question. Particularly, he points to a lack of clarity about whether they would be "permitted to resign, or instead were being fired," and that the notifications were "too abrupt."

A Dec. 19, 2006, e-mail makes reference to Tim Griffin, who was appointed interim US Attorney in Arkansas. Sampson says that "getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc." after musing that he may not have been the right person to test the appointment of US Attorneys out on.

The documents are available at these links in PDF format: Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

Full Conyers statement:

#
The latest round of disclosures from the Department of Justice raise new and troubling questions about the firing of six United States Attorneys.

We have just received documents from the Justice Department in the last hour and are in the process of reviewing them. At a minimum, we believe these documents show a coordinated effort, initiated by the White House, to purge every United States Attorney in the country.

Until recently, the Justice Department persisted in stonewalling the Congress with claims that these firings were "performance related." Now, these documents prove that assertion to be categorically false. We now know the original plan was to fire all the United States Attorneys. It is absurd to think that the performance of every United States Attorney in the country was sub-par and that they deserved to be fired. So this is about something else.

Is it about political cronyism? Is it about partisan pressure on public corruption investigations?

We don't know because the Justice Department and the White House continue to hide behind rationalizations and cover stories that are obviously not true. It is time to come clean.

I have directed my staff to engage with the Justice Department and White House to bring in officials who may have knowledge of these issues for depositions. If they fail to come forward voluntarily, we are prepared to consider further subpoenas.

Media accounts have raised questions about the President's and the White House role in this matter. The public deserves a full accounting of their involvement. I think the president may want to consider making himself available to answer questions from the press on this matter.

The important thing to remember is that this is an ongoing investigation and we will seek coordination with and cooperation from the White House and the Justice Department to get to the bottom of this first. We will not put the cart before the horse by demanding resignations and issuing subpoenas without first asking these individuals to voluntarily answer our questions so that we might get a better sense of what has happened and who should be held accountable.

But we will get to the bottom of this crisis in our Justice Department with or without cooperation. The United States Attorneys are entrusted with tremendous power in our criminal justice system. Using the United States Attorneys as political pawns undermines their critical work in fighting terrorism and risks subjecting the power of the prosecutor to partisan whims.

If that happened here, we deserve the truth and we deserve more accountability than the resignation of a staff member. We are looking to establish better accountability not just in how the Justice Department handled the firing of these US Attorneys, but we want to them to account for their mishandling of the national security letters.

We will markup a bill in our committee this Thursday that repeals the provision in the Patriot Act allowing US Attorneys to be appointed without Senate confirmation and next week we will hold hearings on the use of national security letters. Next Tuesday we will be holding an issue on the NSL Scandal. We are going to use our oversight authority to the best of our ability to hold this Administration accountable for their actions.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Justice_Dept._docs_on_sacking_US_0313.html
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« Reply #4 on: March 16, 2007, 01:53:50 am »

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« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2007, 01:55:54 am »

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« Reply #6 on: March 16, 2007, 01:58:35 am »

E-mail indicates Rove role in firings
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer



WASHINGTON - White House political adviser Karl Rove raised questions in early 2005 about replacing some federal prosecutors but allowing others to stay, an e-mail released Thursday shows.

 
The one-page document, which spans e-mails between the White House and the Justice Department in January 2005, also indicates Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was considering a range of options in dismissing U.S. attorneys early in        President Bush's second term.

But it concludes with Gonzales' top aide warning that an across-the-board housecleaning "would certainly send ripples through the U.S. attorney community if we told folks they got one term only."

The e-mails released Thursday by the Justice Department indicated that Gonzales and his then-chief aide, Kyle Sampson, suggested replacing 15 percent to 20 percent of federal prosecutors they identified as underperformers.

Sampson resigned under fire this week over the Justice Department's mishandling of the firings of eight U.S. attorneys — and misleading Congress about the process.

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« Reply #7 on: March 16, 2007, 02:00:47 am »

GOP support for Gonzales erodes further By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Mar 15, 8:08 PM ET
 



WASHINGTON - Republican support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales eroded further Thursday amid an intensifying furor over his role in federal prosecutor firings, as new e-mails surfaced indicating that top White House political adviser Karl Rove had an early hand in the dismissals.

A Senate panel approved subpoenas for Justice Department officials Thursday in a probe of the firings. Subpoenas for        President Bush's top aides, including Rove, could come next week.

"The new e-mails show conclusively that Karl Rove was in the middle of this mess from the beginning," said Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., adding that the revelations make it "imperative" that Rove testify under oath before Congress.

A White House e-mail to David Leitch, then deputy counsel to the president, dated Jan. 6, 2005, regarding U.S. attorneys says Rove was questioning "whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them."

In a reply three days later, Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, tells Leitch that "we would like to replace 15-20 percent of the current U.S. attorneys — the underperforming ones."

"The vast majority of U.S. attorneys, 80-85 percent_I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc., etc.," Sampson's e-mail says. Later in the e-mail, Sampson wrote that home-state senators may resist replacing prosecutors "they recommended. That said, if Karl thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I."

Sampson resigned Monday night as Gonzales' staff chief. The e-mails were released Thursday by the Justice Department.

Earlier Thursday, Rove said the controversy was being fueled by "superheated political rhetoric," adding that there was no similar uproar when        President Clinton dismissed all 93 U.S. attorneys at the beginning of his first term.

"We're at a point where people want to play politics with it. That's fine," Rove told students at a journalism seminar at Troy University in Alabama.

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the newly released e-mail trail "does not directly contradict, nor is it inconsistent with what we've said."

Rove had a "vague recollection" that it was then-White House counsel Harriet Miers who first raised the idea of replacing all 93 federal prosecutors at the beginning of Bush's second term "and that he thought it was a bad idea and would be unwise."

One Republican, Sen. John Sununu (news, bio, voting record) of New Hampshire, has publicly urged President Bush to fire Gonzales. Still another GOP lawmaker, this one in the House and not ready to speak out publicly, said Thursday he planned to call next week for Gonzales to step down. And Sen. Gordon Smith (news, bio, voting record), R-Ore., said Thursday Gonzales had lost the confidence of Congress.

"The senator believes it would be helpful to have an attorney general that Congress can have more confidence in," said Smith's spokesman, R.C. Hammond.

Other Republican lawmakers spent Thursday urging colleagues to refrain from joining that chorus until they hear more from Gonzales and his aides directly.

"Let's give them a chance to respond before we get tough," said Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee. "I'm prepared to get tough, but I want to get tough with a basis for doing so."

The panel wants to question Gonzales about statements made by his deputies that the firings were not efforts to install new prosecutors without Senate confirmation. An e-mail released this week revealed the attorney general's top aide discussing how to "run out the clock" by invoking a new provision in the Patriot Act that would allow such indefinite appointments.

Any answers may come too late to save Gonzales' job, some lawmakers say.

One Republican member of the        House Judiciary Committee who spoke on condition of anonymity because he has not yet announced his position, said Thursday he has told White House officials that Gonzales stands no chance. The lawmaker said he expects to be among other Republicans calling for Gonzales' resignation after the attorney general tells his story on Capitol Hill.

Regardless of Gonzales' fate, questions will be asked under oath of his aides and most of the prosecutors he fired. The Judiciary Committee approved subpoenas for five Justice officials Thursday as a safeguard against the attorney general's retracting his permission for them to testify voluntarily.

They are Sampson; Michael Elston, top aide to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty; Associate Attorney General Bill Mercer; Monica Goodling, Gonzales' senior counsel and White House liaison; and Mike Battle, departing director of the office that oversees all 93 U.S. attorneys.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the subpoena authorizations were not needed because Gonzales had agreed to make his aides available.

The Senate panel also authorized subpoenas for six of the eight fired U.S. attorneys. The six — Carol Lam of San Diego, Bud Cummins of Arkansas, Paul Charlton of Arizona, John McKay of Seattle, Daniel Bogden of Nevada and David Iglesias of New Mexico — testified under subpoena last week before the House Judiciary Committee.

Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt., delayed until March 22 a vote on subpoenas for Rove; Miers and her deputy, William K. Kelley. E-mails released this week either authored by or mentioning Rove, Miers and Kelley appeared to contradict the administration's contention that Bush's staff had only limited involvement in the purge.

It's customary for new presidents to bring in their own team of prosecutors when they take office. Democrats say the Bush administration singled out some of its own nominees because they chafed at the president's priorities and efforts by Republican members of Congress and others to influence political corruption investigations.

"Eight U.S. attorneys who did not play ball with the political agenda of this administration were dropped from the team," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois. "We have a right to ask what that political agenda was and whether or not it was a reasonable firing and dismissal."

Some of the fired prosecutors testified last week that lawmakers leaned on them to speed up prosecutions that would hurt Democrats. Others said they felt intimidated by the agency to stay quiet. All of them were miffed by the Justice Department's contention that the dismissals were performance-related. The department then fired back, enumerating publicly what were described as performance problems for each of the fired prosecutors.

Bush on Wednesday defended the firings but criticized how they were explained to Congress. The president said he still had confidence in the attorney general but implied that his support was conditioned on Gonzales patching things up with lawmakers.

___

Associated Press writers Lara Jakes Jordan and Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed to this report.
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« Reply #8 on: March 16, 2007, 02:19:04 am »

Bush 'wanted war in 2002'

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday February 24, 2004
The Guardian


George Bush set the US on the path to war in Iraq with a formal order signed in February 2002, more than a year before the invasion, according to a book published yesterday.
The revelation casts doubt on the public insistence by US and British officials throughout 2002 that no decision had been taken to go to war, pending negotiations at the United Nations.


Rumsfeld's War is by Rowan Scarborough, the Pentagon correspondent for the conservative Washington Times newspaper, which is known for its contacts in the defence department's civilian leadership.

"On February 16 2002, Bush signed a secret national security council directive establishing the goals and objectives for going to war with Iraq, according to classified documents I obtained," Mr Scarborough wrote, in an account of the "global war on terrorism" as seen from the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary.

The next month, he writes, the head of central command, General Tommy Franks, conducted a "major Iraq war exercise code-named "Prominent Hammer", and in April he briefed the joint chiefs of staff on the invasion plan.

"Franks's plan called for 200,000 to 250,000 troops and a two-front land war... striking from Kuwait and from Turkey," the book says.

The national security council refused to comment on the book's claims about the February directive. "I don't do book reviews," a White House official said.

Ivo Daalder, an official in Bill Clinton's national security council, said a national security presidential directive was "the most formal way that decisions by the president and others are communicated to the rest of the government."

Rumsfeld's War reproduces excerpts from a secret Defence Intelligence Agency briefing document in July 1999 about future threats to the US.

It portrays Saddam Hussein's Iraq as a threat only if sanctions were lifted. But the administration decided that neither inspections nor sanctions were working, partly as a result of later discredited reports that Saddam had stockpiled WMDs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1154624,00.html

Bush has denied making a decision prior to when the war started in March of 2003, which makes him a liar. An impeachable offense.
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« Reply #9 on: March 16, 2007, 02:20:34 am »

The title of this forum is "evidence."  Here is some evidence that the Bush administration actually fabricated the intelligence to give provocation for the Iraq War.

This is the formerly top secret Downing Street memo:


 
Quote
Downing Street memo
SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY


TO: DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02


cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.

(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.

(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.

John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Conclusions:

(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.

(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.

(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.

(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.

He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.

(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.

(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.

(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo 

As we see from the memo, it military action was already decided to last sixty days, little consideration is being given to the aftermath of the war and it is timed to coincide with the congressinal elections. You'll note that the memo also acknowledges that it is known that they believe "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

Most key, this admission:

 
Quote
Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
Bush's response:

 
Quote
President Bush did not address the issue of the intelligence and facts being "fixed" around a decision to go to war, but he did deny that he had, at the time of the memo, already decided to use military force against Saddam Hussein, saying "There's nothing farther from the truth." Bush also questioned the motives of whoever leaked the memo during the British election, saying "Well, I—you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. … I'm not sure who 'they dropped it out' is, but—I'm not suggesting that you all dropped it out there."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo 

As we can see, this response, too, was a lie.
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« Reply #10 on: March 16, 2007, 02:21:52 am »

This one shows that, as early as nine days after 9/11, Bush had already asked Tony Blair to help him try and pin the terrorist attacks on Saddam as a pretense for removing him from power:


 
Quote
Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war

· Decision came nine days after 9/11
· Ex-ambassador reveals discussion

David Rose
Sunday April 4, 2004
The Observer


President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.
According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.


Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.

It was clear, Meyer says, 'that when we did come back to Iraq it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions'. Elsewhere in his interview, Meyer says Blair always believed it was unlikely that Saddam would be removed from power or give up his weapons of mass destruction without a war.

Faced with this prospect of a further war, he adds, Blair 'said nothing to demur'.

Details of this extraordinary conversation will be published this week in a 25,000-word article on the path to war with Iraq in the May issue of the American magazine Vanity Fair. It provides new corroboration of the claims made last month in a book by Bush's former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, that Bush was 'obsessed' with Iraq as his principal target after 9/11.

But the implications for Blair may be still more explosive. The discussion implies that, even before the bombing of Afghanistan, Blair already knew that the US intended to attack Saddam next, although he continued to insist in public that 'no decisions had been taken' until almost the moment that the invasion began in March 2003. His critics are likely to seize on the report of the two leaders' exchange and demand to know when Blair resolved to provide the backing that Bush sought.

The Vanity Fair article will provide further ammunition in the shape of extracts from the private, contemporaneous diary kept by the former International Development Secretary, Clare Short, throughout the months leading up to the war. This reveals how, during the summer of 2002, when Blair and his closest advisers were mounting an intense diplomatic campaign to persuade Bush to agree to seek United Nations support over Iraq, and promising British support for military action in return, Blair apparently concealed his actions from his Cabinet.

For example, on 26 July Short wrote that she had raised her 'simmering worry about Iraq' in a meeting with Blair, asking him for a debate on Iraq in the next Cabinet meeting - the last before the summer recess. However, the diary went on, Blair replied that this was unnecessary because 'it would get hyped ... He said nothing [was] decided, and wouldn't be over summer.'

In fact, that week Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, was in Washington, meeting both Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in order to press Blair's terms for military support, and Blair himself had written a personal memorandum to the President in which he set them out. Vanity Fair quotes a senior American official from Vice-President Dick Cheney's office who says he read the transcript of a telephone call between Blair and Bush a few days later.

'The way it read was that, come what may, Saddam was going to go; they said they were going forward, they were going to take out the regime, and they were doing the right thing. Blair did not need any convincing. There was no, "Come on, Tony, we've got to get you on board". I remember reading it and then thinking, "OK, now I know what we're going to be doing for the next year".'

Before the call, this official says, he had the impression that the probability of invasion was high, but still below 100 per cent. Afterwards, he says, 'it was a done deal'.

As late as 9 September, Short's diary records, when Blair went to a summit with Bush and Cheney at Camp David in order to discuss final details, 'T[ony] B[lair] gave me assurances when I asked for Iraq to be discussed at Cabinet that no decision [had been] made and [was] not imminent.' Later that day she learnt from the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that Blair had asked to make 20,000 British troops available in the Gulf. She still believed her Prime Minister's assurances, but wrote that, if had she not done so, she would 'almost certainly' have resigned from the Government. At that juncture her resignation would have dealt Blair a very damaging blow.

But if Blair was misleading his own Government and party, he appears to have done the same thing to Bush and Cheney. At the Camp David meeting, Cheney was still resisting taking the case against Saddam and his alleged weapons of mass destruction to the UN.

According to both Meyer and the senior Cheney official, Blair helped win his argument by saying that he could be toppled from power at the Labour Party conference later that month if Bush did not take his advice. The party constitution makes clear that this would have been impossible and senior party figures agree that, at that juncture, it was not a politically realistic statement.

Short's diary shows in the final run-up to war Blair persuaded her not to resign and repeatedly stated that Bush had promised it would be the UN, not the American-led occupying coalition, which would supervise the reconstruction of Iraq. This, she writes, was the clinching factor in her decision to stay in the Government - with devastating consequences for her own political reputation.

Vanity Fair also discloses that on 13 January, at a lunch around the mahogany table in Rice's White House office, President Chirac's top adviser, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, and his Washington ambassador, Jean-David Levitte, made the US an offer it should have accepted. In the hope of avoiding an open breach between the two countries, they said that, if America was determined to go to war, it should not seek a second resolution, that the previous autumn's Resolution 1441 arguably provided sufficient legal cover, and that France would keep quiet if the administration went ahead.

But Bush had already promised Blair he would seek a second resolution and Blair feared he might lose Parliament's support without it. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office legal department was telling him that without a second resolution war would be illegal, a view that Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, seemed to share at that stage. When the White House sought Blair's opinion on the French overture, he balked.

A Downing Street spokesman said last night: 'Iraq had been a foreign policy priority for a long time and was discussed at most meetings between the two leaders. Our position was always clear: that we would try to work through the UN, and a decision on military action was not taken until other options were exhausted in March last year.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1185438,00.html

It's hard to figure Tony Blair's mind, but it's apparent that he went to war only reluctantly and that his cabinet has been reluctant in it's support.
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« Reply #11 on: March 16, 2007, 02:23:01 am »

And here is the kicker.  Bush had actually planned to go to war in Iraq even before his first election:

 
Quote
Exclusive: Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in 2000
Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:59:47 -0700  War on my mind By Russ Baker

Two years before 9/11, candidate Bush was already talking privately about attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer
Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”


Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father’s shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. “Suddenly, he’s at 91 percent in the polls, and he’d barely crawled out of the bunker.”

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work – and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war – has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush’s unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters – well before he became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush’s ghostwriter after Bush’s handlers concluded that the candidate’s views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.

According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.

The revelations on Bush’s attitude toward Iraq emerged recently during two taped interviews of Herskowitz, which included a discussion of a variety of matters, including his continued closeness with the Bush family, indicated by his subsequent selection to pen an authorized biography of Bush’s grandfather, written and published last year with the assistance and blessing of the Bush family.

Herskowitz also revealed the following:

-In 2003, Bush’s father indicated to him that he disagreed with his son’s invasion of Iraq.

-Bush admitted that he failed to fulfill his Vietnam-era domestic National Guard service obligation, but claimed that he had been “excused.”

-Bush revealed that after he left his Texas National Guard unit in 1972 under murky circumstances, he never piloted a plane again. That casts doubt on the carefully-choreographed moment of Bush emerging in pilot’s garb from a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 to celebrate “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. The image, instantly telegraphed around the globe, and subsequent hazy White House statements about his capacity in the cockpit, created the impression that a heroic Bush had played a role in landing the craft.

-Bush described his own business ventures as “floundering” before campaign officials insisted on recasting them in a positive light.


Throughout the interviews for this article and in subsequent conversations, Herskowitz indicated he was conflicted over revealing information provided by a family with which he has longtime connections, and by how his candor could comport with the undefined operating principles of the as-told-to genre. Well after the interviews—in which he expressed consternation that Bush’s true views, experience and basic essence had eluded the American people —Herskowitz communicated growing concern about the consequences for himself of the publication of his remarks, and said that he had been under the impression he would not be quoted by name. However, when conversations began, it was made clear to him that the material was intended for publication and attribution. A tape recorder was present and visible at all times.

Several people who know Herskowitz well addressed his character and the veracity of his recollections. “I don’t know anybody that’s ever said a bad word about Mickey,” said Barry Silverman, a well-known Houston executive and civic figure who worked with him on another book project. An informal survey of Texas journalists turned up uniform confidence that Herskowitz’s account as contained in this article could be considered accurate.

One noted Texas journalist who spoke with Herskowitz about the book in 1999 recalls how the author mentioned to him at the time that Bush had revealed things the campaign found embarrassing and did not want in print. He requested anonymity because of the political climate in the state. “I can’t go near this,” he said.

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush’s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House – ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.”

Bush’s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: “They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.”

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter’s political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush’s father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents – Grenada and Panama – and gained politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye to eye.

“I know [Bush senior] would not admit this now, but he was opposed to it. I asked him if he had talked to W about invading Iraq. “He said, ‘No I haven’t, and I won’t, but Brent [Scowcroft] has.’ Brent would not have talked to him without the old man’s okaying it.” Scowcroft, national security adviser in the elder Bush’s administration, penned a highly publicized warning to George W. Bush about the perils of an invasion.

Herskowitz’s revelations are not the sole indicator of Bush’s pre-election thinking on Iraq. In December 1999, some six months after his talks with Herskowitz, Bush surprised veteran political chroniclers, including the Boston Globe’s David Nyhan, with his blunt pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event that got little notice: “It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam’s weapons stash,” wrote Nyhan. ‘I’d take ‘em out,’ [Bush] grinned cavalierly, ‘take out the weapons of mass destruction…I’m surprised he’s still there,” said Bush of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush Jr.’s father…It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush’s first big clinker. ”

The notion that President Bush held unrealistic or naďve views about the consequences of war was further advanced recently by a Bush supporter, the evangelist Pat Robertson, who revealed that Bush had told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties. In addition, in recent days, high-ranking US military officials have complained that the White House did not provide them with adequate resources for the task at hand.

Herskowitz considers himself a friend of the Bush family, and has been a guest at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport. In the late 1960s, Herskowitz, a longtime Houston Chronicle sports columnist designated President Bush’s father, then-Congressman George HW Bush, to replace him as a guest columnist, and the two have remained close since then. (Herskowitz was suspended briefly in April without pay for reusing material from one of his own columns, about legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.)

In 1999, when Herskowitz turned in his chapters for Charge to Keep, Bush’s staff expressed displeasure —often over Herskowitz’s use of language provided by Bush himself. In a chapter on the oil business, Herskowitz included Bush’s own words to describe the Texan’s unprofitable business ventures, writing: “the companies were floundering”. “I got a call from one of the campaign lawyers, he was kind of angry, and he said, ‘You’ve got some wrong information.’ I didn’t bother to say, ‘Well you know where it came from.’ [The lawyer] said, ‘We do not consider that the governor struggled or floundered in the oil business. We consider him a successful oilman who started up at least two new businesses.’ ”

In the end, campaign officials decided not to go with Herskowitz’s account, and, moreover, demanded everything back. “The lawyer called me and said, ‘Delete it. Shred it. Just do it.’ ”

“They took it and [communications director] Karen [Hughes] rewrote it,” he said. A campaign official arrived at his home at seven a.m. on a Monday morning and took his notes and computer files. However, Herskowitz, who is known for his memory of anecdotes from his long history in journalism and book publishing, says he is confident about his recollections.

According to Herskowitz, Bush was reluctant to discuss his time in the Texas Air National Guard – and inconsistent when he did so. Bush, he said, provided conflicting explanations of how he came to bypass a waiting list and obtain a coveted Guard slot as a domestic alternative to being sent to Vietnam. Herskowitz also said that Bush told him that after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was “excused.” This directly contradicts his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard. Bush’s claim to have fulfilled his military duty has been subject to intense scrutiny; he has insisted in the past that he did show up for monthly drills in Alabama – though commanding officers say they never saw him, and no Guardsmen have come forward to accept substantial “rewards” for anyone who can claim to have seen Bush on base.

Herskowitz said he asked Bush if he ever flew a plane again after leaving the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 – which was two years prior to his contractual obligation to fly jets was due to expire. He said Bush told him he never flew any plane – military or civilian – again. That would contradict published accounts in which Bush talks about his days in 1973 working with inner-city children, when he claimed to have taken some of the children up in a plane.

In 2002, three years after he had been pulled off the George W. Bush biography, Herskowitz was asked by Bush’s father to write a book about the current president’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, after getting a message that the senior Bush wanted to see him. “Former President Bush just handed it to me. We were sitting there one day, and I was visiting him there in his office…He said, ‘I wish somebody would do a book about my dad.’ ”

“He said to me, ‘I know this has been a disappointing time for you, but it’s amazing how many times something good will come out of it.’ I passed it on to my agent, he jumped all over it. I asked [Bush senior], ‘Would you support it and would you give me access to the rest of family?’ He said yes.”

That book, Duty, Honor, Country: The Life and Legacy of Prescott Bush, was published in 2003 by Routledge. If anything, the book has been criticized for its over-reliance on the Bush family’s perspective and rosy interpretation of events. Herskowitz himself is considered the ultimate “as-told-to” author, lending credibility to his account of what George W. Bush told him. Herskowitz’s other books run the gamut of public figures, and include the memoirs of Reagan aide Deaver, former Texas Governor and Nixon Treasury Secretary John Connally, newsman Dan Rather, astronaut Walter Cunningham, and baseball greats Mickey Mantle and Nolan Ryan.

After Herskowitz was pulled from the Bush book project, the biographer learned that a scenario was being prepared to explain his departure. “I got a phone call from someone in the Bush campaign, confidentially, saying ‘Watch your back.’ ”

Reporters covering Bush say that when they inquired as to why Herskowitz was no longer on the project, Hughes intimated that Herskowitz had personal habits that interfered with his writing – a claim Herskowitz said is unfounded. Later, the campaign put out the word that Herskowitz had been removed for missing a deadline. Hughes subsequently finished the book herself – it received largely critical reviews for its self-serving qualities and lack of spontaneity or introspection.

So, said Herskowitz, the best material was left on the cutting room floor, including Bush’s true feelings.

“He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake,” Herskowitz said. “That was one of the keys to being a leader.”

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute.

Russ Baker is an award-winning independent journalist who has been published in The New York Times, The Nation, Washington Post, The Telegraph (UK), Sydney Morning-Herald, and Der Spiegel, among many others.
http://www.gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=761
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« Reply #12 on: March 16, 2007, 02:24:06 am »

Anyway, Bush was not misled by the intelligence.  According to Russ Baker,  Sir Christopher Meyer, Paul O'Neil and Richard Clarke, he was fixated on waging a war on Iraq all along. The Downey Street memo is the document the most damning proof.  What did he do it for?  According to his own words, it was nothing more than to be seen as a great commander in chief. 

Imagine the irony of that.
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« Reply #13 on: March 16, 2007, 02:26:17 am »

Long List Of Bush-Cheney
Administration Lies
Compiled by a What Really Happened.com reader..

10-7-4

READER: In light of all that Bush and Cheney [have] said recently, I am sending this info:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
- Dick Cheney, August 26 2002

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
- George W. Bush, September 12 2002

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."
- Ari Fleischer, December 2 2002

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
- Ari Fleischer, January 9 2003

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
- George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January 28 2003

"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."
- Colin Powell, February 5 2003

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons."
- George Bush, February 8 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."
- George Bush, March 17 2003

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."
- Ari Fleischer, March 21 2003

"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."
- Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22 2003

"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30 2003.

"Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."
- Bush in October 2002.

"Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda."
- Bush in January 2003 State of the Union address.

"Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training."
- Bush in February 2003.

"sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al-Qaeda terrorist network."
Powell in his U.N. speech prior to the Iraq War.

"We have removed an ally of Al Qaeda."
Bush in May 2003.

Stated that the Iraqis were "providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the Al Qaeda organization."
- Cheney in September 2003.

"Saddam had an established relationship with Al Qaeda, providing training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons, gases, making conventional weapons."
- Cheney in October 2003.
.......

Cheney said Saddam "had long established ties with Al Qaeda."
- June 14, 2004.

Bush said, "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and Al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda."
- June 17, 2004.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.rense.com/general58/dadmin.htm

There was no relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda before the war (there is now, of course). And they knew there were no weapons of mass destruction.

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« Reply #14 on: March 16, 2007, 02:30:51 am »

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution states:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The question to ask ourselves here is, does Bush's conduct as President rise to the level of impeachment?  Well, three states think so. California, Illinois and Vermont have already passed resolutions in their state legislatures calling for his impeachment.

Equally, the American Bar Association is investigating his wire-tapping program to see if it was legal or not.  It isn't, by the way.

Bush claims to have had authority from the United Nations to bomb Iraq, but he didn't ever get it.  UN Resolution 1441, the last one passed before the Iraq War doesn't authorize the use of force. 

We're covering just the first of the charges here, but we can already see that the Iraq War was premediated:

 
Quote
Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

 http://www.gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=761

President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.
According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1185438,00.html

Downing Street memo

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo 
George Bush set the US on the path to war in Iraq with a formal order signed in February 2002, more than a year before the invasion, according to a book published yesterday.
The revelation casts doubt on the public insistence by US and British officials throughout 2002 that no decision had been taken to go to war, pending negotiations at the United Nations.

Rumsfeld's War is by Rowan Scarborough, the Pentagon correspondent for the conservative Washington Times newspaper, which is known for its contacts in the defence department's civilian leadership.

"On February 16 2002, Bush signed a secret national security council directive establishing the goals and objectives for going to war with Iraq, according to classified documents I obtained," Mr Scarborough wrote, in an account of the "global war on terrorism" as seen from the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1154624,00.html


Simply put, all the proof says he fixed the intelligence and fabricated the war. 
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