http://zzpat.tripod.com/cvb/impeach108.html#They_impeach_murderers_dont_they
Bush, however, stands accused as the greatest mass murderer in
American history.
The Lexington Institute estimates that the U.S. killed between 15,000
and 20,000 Iraqi troops during
the fraudulently justified invasion of Iraq, plus 10,000 to 15,000
wounded. More than 150 U.S.
soldiers were killed, plus more than 500 injured.
Bush conned us into a one-sided war of aggression that
killed and maimed thousands of innocent people, destroyed billions of
dollars in Iraqi infrastructure, cost tens of
billions of dollars, cost the lives of American soldiers, and
transformed our international image as the world's
shining beacon of freedom into that of a marauding police state.
Commentary:
It's needless to say Bush had no evidence to go to war. Had he had
proof of WMD before going to war he would have given it to the UN
inspectors.
But even if you're naive enough to think Bush had bad intelligence,
then how is it that we had WMD experts on the ground in Iraq before
the war started and they too couldn't find any WMD? When Bush,
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Blair were telling us they had absolute
proof of WMD, our forces on the ground couldn't verify those
statements. Neither could the UN.
Blaming intelligence is nonsensical and only fools continue to
believe the administration.
=
They impeach murderers, don't they?
Japan Times
By TED RALL
Monday, June 16, 2003
NEW YORK -- U.S. President George W. Bush told us that Iraq and
al-Qaeda were working together.
They weren't. He repeatedly implied that Iraq had had something to do
with 9/11. It hadn't. He claimed to
have proof that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed banned
weapons of mass destruction.
He didn't. As our allies watched in horror and disgust, Bush conned
us into a one-sided war of aggression that
killed and maimed thousands of innocent people, destroyed billions of
dollars in Iraqi infrastructure, cost tens of
billions of dollars, cost the lives of American soldiers, and
transformed our international image as the world's
shining beacon of freedom into that of a marauding police state.
Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton
rightly faced impeachment for comparatively trivial offenses; if we
hope to restore our nation's honor, George
W. Bush too must face a president's gravest political sanction.
As the Bush administration sold Congress and the public on the
"threat" posed by Hussein last winter, White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer assured the American people: "The
president of the United States and the
secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and vocally as they
have that Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction if it was not true and if they did not have a solid basis
for saying it."
That's unambiguous rhetoric. But since allied occupation forces have
failed to find WMDs, Bush is
backtracking: "I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out
that they did have a weapons
program," he now says.
What's next? Claiming that Hussein had WMDs because, you know, you
could just feel it?
A ferocious power struggle is taking place between the intelligence
community and the White House.
"It's hard to tell if there was a breakdown in intelligence or a
breakdown in the way intelligence was
used," says Michele Flournoy of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies.
No it's not. Career analysts at the Central and Defense Intelligence
Agencies, furious at Bush for sticking
them with the blame for the weapons scandal, are leaking prewar
memoranda that indicate that the
administration covered up the spooks' assessments, making the case
for war with a pile of lies constructed on
a bedrock of oil-fueled greed.
A September 2002 DIA study said there was "no reliable information on
whether Iraq is producing and
stockpiling chemical weapons," but Bush ignored the report -- and
told us the exact opposite. After
Bush used the discovery of two alleged mobile weapons labs to claim
"we found the weapons of mass
destruction," CIA "dissenters" shot back that Bush had lied about
their reports and that they "doubted the
trailers were used to make germ agents, not[ing] that the plants
lacked gear for steam sterilization, which is
typically necessary for making bioweapons."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld parried: "Any indication or
allegation that the intelligence was in any way
politicized, of course, is just false on its face . . . We haven't
found Saddam Hussein either, but no one's
doubting that he was there." Rummy also floated the CIA-debunked tale
of an Iraq-al Qaeda link.
Both factions are missing the point.
Calling for a full Congressional investigation, Sen. Carl Levin, a
Michigan Democrat of the Armed Services
Committee, says: "I think that the nation's credibility is on the
line, as well as Bush's."
But not even the discovery of a vast WMD arsenal should save Bush now.
Assuming that one accepts preemption
as a legitimate cause for war -- and one ought not -- you must possess
airtight substantiation that a nation poses
an imminent and significant threat before you drop bombs on its
cities. Evidence that falls short of 100-percent
proof, presented in advance, doesn't pass the pre-empt test.
Bush claimed to have that proof. He said Iraq could deploy its
biological and chemical weapons with just
45 minutes notice. He painted gruesome pictures of American cities in
ruins, their debris irradiated by an
Iraqi "dirty bomb." It was all a bald-faced lie, and lying presidents
get impeached.
Bush, like Nixon, "endeavor(ed) to misuse the Central Intelligence
Agency." Bush, like Nixon, "(made) or
caus(ed) to be made false or misleading public statements for the
purpose of deceiving the people of the
United States." (The legalese comes from the first Article of
Impeachment against Nixon, passed by
the House Judiciary Committee on July 27, 1974. Faced with certain
impeachment in the House and
conviction in the Senate, Nixon resigned two weeks later.)
In the words of Clinton's 1998 impeachment, Bush "has undermined the
integrity of his office, has brought
disrepute on the Presidency, has betrayed his trust as President, and
has acted in a manner subversive
of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the people
of the United States."
Nixon and Clinton escaped criminal prosecution for burglary, perjury
and obstruction of justice. Bush,
however, stands accused as the greatest mass murderer in American
history. The Lexington Institute
estimates that the U.S. killed between 15,000 and