THE COMFORT OF DISBELIEF

by thebeerdoctor

There is something quite marvelous in modern American television. It allows the viewers to be constantly distracted. A plethora of topics is available to astound. There is a man having a baby, while another baby almost falls off a cliff. A book is returned to the public library after being overdue for fifty years. And what about the bold dress color, worn by the first lady of the President-elect, on their open house visit to what will be their residence for the next four years. Then there is The Economy. An unpleasant topic filled with stories of a Dow Industrial Average continually tanking, and the need for a bailout… no strike that, a rescue plan, that involves showing how much faith the federal government has in big businesses, and the assumed fantasy known as the free market system. This is where the American citizens are told to just surrender unto corporate Caesar what is their monetary (therefore, Divine) right to. And do not fret your precious little head over the details about how this rescue plan is to be implemented. There is no need for oversight. Instead of governance laws, there are not even rules, just simply, guidelines.

Neel Kashkari, the Treasury department Santa in charge of the bailout goody bag, opposed the FDIC proposal of using $24 billion to cut the mortgage payments for homeowners threatened with foreclosure. For these true recipients of the housing crisis, who truly feel the brunt of all of this, there is not even a stocking with a lump of coal.

People who attempt to put a civil face on this mess, will say that the money is being poorly targeted. I do not believe that for a second. The so-called focus of the bailout assumes there is public service altruism involved, and that it is good for the country. No, this is a robbery. Robbery on a grand scale, but robbery nonetheless. A working synopsis would be: the game, known as the free market credit system, has been busted by the ownership class, and now there is a frantic dash to destroy all evidence of their participation, by looting everything in sight, and, in the case of treasury tax law section 382, everything that still remains hidden.
“Poverty is the most urgent crisis facing the world,” says European Development Commissioner, Louis Michel. This is certainly not Job 1 for the rescue plan, where multi-billions have already been put into our financial system, supposedly to unleash lending. But without enforced stipulations on how this money was to be used, much of this went to paying executive bonuses and buying up smaller, and often profitable, banks.

The Congressional Democrats, along with some of their appalled Republican colleagues, found themselves aghast with a toothless give-away piece of legislation, where the only remedy was to compose angry letters to the Chief Executive Officers of the corporations who stand to benefit greatly from this U.S. government largesse. What were once investment banks are now holding banks. What was once a credit card company is now classified as a bank also.

Quite remarkable is the rapidity at which this new mindset of the government existing solely for the corporate elite, has been adopted by the population in general. The television liaisons of the ownership class, such as Oprah and Dr. Phil, comfort their audiences with reassurance, saying we are all in this together. Local news carries features on how to survive on a tightened (and getting tighter) budget. Learn how to turn down the thermostat on the heater, and where to download cost saving coupons from the internet!

The Republicans, in their recently failed election campaign, loved to cite Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the chief culprits in the housing mortgage crisis. In reality, those two quasi, now owned by, government backed entities account for only 40% of the mortgage system. To get an idea how the other 60% participated in this robbery, former Wall Street analyst Michael Lewis’ article titled The End, speaks volumes about how mortgage backed securities became an instrument for increasing wealth, by betting, therefore shorting, that those instruments would inevitably fail. As Lewis notes: “The juiciest shorts–the bonds ultimately backed by the mortgages most likely to default.”

“The loans would have been made by one of the more dubious mortgage lenders, Long Beach Financial, wholly owned by Washington Mutual, was a great example.”
It turns out: “Long Beach Financial was moving money out the door as fast as it could, few questions asked, in loans built to self destruct. It specialized in asking homeowners with bad credit and no proof of income to put no money down and defer interest payments for as long as possible. In Bakersfield, California, a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $720,000.”

What seems to be the most shocking for Michael Lewis was the extent of the crime. Writing about analyst Steve Eisman he states: “Eisman knew subprime lenders could be scumbags. What he underestimated was the total unabashed complicity of the upper class of American capitalism.”

One time junior accountant, Vince Daniel, saw this up close, while working for the once-upon-a-time Arthur Andersen, during an audit of Solomon Brothers: “I saw how the sausage was made in the economy, and it was really freaky.”

This could easily be applied to Meredith Whitney’s observations, around Halloween 2007, when the Oppenheimer Fund analyst announced that Citigroup would have to cut its dividends in order to remain operating. People were shocked, especially when it turned out to be true. Now, a little over a year later, Citigroup announced it would have to slash ten thousand jobs, for a start, with its stock price falling from $50 to under 10. The robbery that dare not speak its name, has been involved in nearly all of this.

This makes the denials of the participants even more appalling. The people in charge at these firms claim, not unlike much of the political leadership, that they were simply along for the ride and had no idea that the vehicle they were traveling in, was actually stolen.

But then there is always the matter of the corporate image to be considered. Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, it has been announced, will not be receiving any bonus to his $600,000 base salary, partially due to the firm’s participation in the $700 billion bailout. This seems only proper. Lucas van Praag, company spokesman said, “They believe its the right thing to do. We can’t ignore the fact that we are part of an industry that’s directly associated with the ongoing economic distress.”
What a remarkable admission. Never mind that Mr. Blankfein took in just under $70 million last year. The six hundred grand? The bare skin and bones take home pay? It will be tough, but he will manage somehow. It’s the right thing to do, like having a bowl of old fashioned oatmeal in the morning. And yes, they can’t ignore the fact that they are part of an industry… don’t you just love that word, industry? The big glass and steel building that manufactures these mysterious financial instruments, that are not only directly associated with the ongoing economic distress, but bloody near the cause of it all.

“CEO Lloyd Blankfein,” as Bethany McLean wrote in Fortune, “who took over last spring, gets credit for helping steer Goldman away from the most damaging investments. And Goldman which says it has limited exposure to the subprime mess, stands confirmed - for now, anyway - as the smartest bank on the Street.”
Of course these words of confidence were written before Goldman Sachs changed their operation mode (or modus operandi) from an investment bank to a holding bank. Which also makes me wonder if they were so smart in steering clear of the subprime mess, why are they receiving bailout money?

Unreality has its psychic advantages. If only President Bush could look into the Economy’s eyes and see its soul, and know it has a good heart. If only he could just call in an air strike and stop all this bleeding from these collateralized debt obligations. If only…

Late at night, when the other usual voices have gone to bed, you can hear the BBC radio world service, where commentators across the globe, speak of the present situation. There is not much mincing of words. They seem to know that we are in an economic global depression, whether anyone cares to admit or not. The air has been let out of the balloon, and people are genuinely worried.

As this unique winter of discontent approaches, I am strangely reminded of the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, sung by Judy Garland, in the movie Meet Me In St. Louis. It seems that Ms. Garland and her future husband, the director Vincente Minnelli, found the original lyrics too depressing, and decided to change them. So did Chairman of the Board Frank Sinatra, who wanted to “jolly it up a bit” when he recorded the song in the 1950’s. But for myself, the original draft seems much more pertinent to our present situation.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
It may be your last
Next year we may all be living in the past

No good times like the olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
will be near to us no more

But at least we will all be together
If the Lord allows
From now on we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now

And that’s what Wall Street is all about Charlie Brown.

AN UNEASY BIRTHDAY

November 6th, 2008 | by thebeerdoctor

The end of October and the beginning of November has always been a special time for me. Being born on All Saints Day, there has always been that morning after tie-in with Halloween. Never was this more acutely felt as in 1963, when on my way to school I saw the jack-o-lanterns set out for Friday’s garbage and became sad, until I realized it was also my birthday.

Years later I became aware of Malcolm Lowry’s novel Under The Volcano, which fictionally takes place on November 1, 1938. Add to that, the Day of the Dead, the Mayan Day of the Dead, Samhain Day, etc., and this period of time becomes rather personally significant. But never has this holiday period been under such pressure as that being generated this presidential election year.

It really does not matter that the Democratic candidate is really a centrist, non-ideological person. The fact that he is a man with a permanent tan… and that sadly, is what all the damn fuss is about.

Republicans especially, but independents also, will not admit that their trouble with Barack Obama is not because he is a radical child of the sixties (he most certainly is not), or that they just do not know him well enough. Which is particularly strange, because many of the people who got on board the runaway train known as George W. Bush, knew very little about him, except he seemed to relish his mandate from the state of Texas to enforce the death penalty. Oh and yes, his daddy is a former President. No, the real problem many have with Senator Obama is the realization that there is going to be a brother in charge. A national civic moment that finally says, it doesn’t matter what a person’s background is, what matters now is can they do the job or not.

Halloween night was unusually different. Senator Hillary Clinton appeared that day at a get-out-the-vote Obama rally, four and a half blocks from my house. The local neighborhood is clearly in the tank for Barry O. A McCain/Palin sign here is considered an aberration, usually posted by someone who is worried about their guns, or their lawn, or both. There is also the occasional right-to-life warrior. An issue driven concern for fetuses that is greater than actual babies being murdered in our far away wars. Folks of this persuasion will not even consider the notion that the best way to prevent abortions is to avoid circumstances which require their consideration. But that would involve sexual education, contraceptives and such. This is the real kicker: many anti-abortion advocates do not want anyone using contraceptives. Consider the Governor of Alaska’s inflexible position on this issue. It is not all surprising that her daughter finds herself with bump.

The uneasiness about the election makes many people nervous. Adding to this are the divisive remarks from Governor Palin, who seems hell bent on convincing the electorate that Senator Obama is a card carrying fellow traveler of terrorists. It quickly becomes apparent what the Republicans are up to. Unable to gloss over the mismanagement and incompetence of the Bush years, they choose to divert attention away by constructing a false, social-cultural war. Of course the McCain/Palin campaign claim nothing of the sort. Despite the fact that Mrs. Palin chose to quote Westbrook Pegler, a bona fide American fascist, during her infamous GOP convention speech. Later, when a few people did notice this, nobody seemed very concerned.
Television, both local and national, decided to broadcast many of the Alaska Governor’s unctuous stump speeches. To put it in her vernacular, they were tight little pointed packages of verbiage, designed to strike fear in the hearts of those with just enough audacity of hope, to actually question her supposed patriotic authority. This was ironic. The advancement of women in the workplace, now included creating an unapologetic demagogue.

Senator McCain for his part seem befuddled. Long before the economic crisis, he seemed off his game the first day he announced his vice- presidential pick. The kind of people that Sarah Palin pals around with (witch doctor, secessionist) added an exotic flare to her biography that was not exactly desirable. When shadow president Dick Cheney endorsed their ticket, a McCain supporter said to me: “we need that like we need a hole in the head.”

Despite it being often reported how much Barack Obama outspent Senator McCain, here in the local market the Republican based fear ads were everywhere. Where money really did make a difference was the boots on the ground, the so-called ground game. Here Obama’s people seemed omnipresent, continuously calling up for support, asking if you need help when going to vote. As late as the last hour before the polls closed, I saw Obama workers still knocking on doors. After witnessing this gargantuan effort, it is not surprising at all that Senator Obama won the state of Ohio. I am sure Indiana experienced similar actions. The McCain crowd, even the third part dreamers, could not match the hard work and tenacity of the Obama campaign. Why should they be surprised at the results?

But there is no way to describe, or simply convey, what happened on election night. This is something I will never experience again, after living over half a century on this earth. It all fell into place around 11pm, eastern standard time. The television news announced that Senator Barack Hussein Obama would be the next United States President.

I look over at my older brother, who says to me, using his Animal House language: “The war is over. Obama dropped the big one.”

I quickly went upstairs, knocked on the bedroom of my 82 year old mother. “Mom, I said, Barack Obama is the next President of the United States.”
There was a quiet joy on her face knowing that she lived long enough to see something occur that only a few years ago was said to be a complete impossibility. To know, to actually know, that destiny is not always predicted, that Providence, if you will, works in very mysterious ways.

I quickly made an exit from my house to the convenience store located a couple of blocks away. Being a beer consultant to non-alcohol drinking, middle eastern Americans, I have always been held in higher regard than I deserve.
“You predicted it.” Nasser said. The fiercely independent shop owner was abundantly happy, making reference to what I said a few days earlier, that Obama would win and it would all be over by midnight.

People in the store were shaking hands and giving hugs. Black people wandered in with a kind of happy shell shock. Damn! There is going to be a black man in the White House!

Nasser, feeling and looking magnanimous said: “What do you think of Barack Obama now?” and then, “The Beer Doctor predicted it.”
Which was all very flattering, but basically besides the point. My so-called analysis was simply based on the assumption that all the polls showed Senator Obama was ahead, and the only way for a McCain victory to happen would be if they were all wrong. The Harry Truman election was brought up briefly, but I said no, that won’t do, John McCain is not a sitting President.

Television, despite all the data, seemed to assume a say it isn’t so mode, right up to the end. This was understandable. TV has products to sell. A foregone conclusion can be a real marketing killer.

The expression tears of joy maybe foreign to many. But on this unforgettable night, I finally understood what that meant. Racism has always been an ugly backdrop growing up in the state of Ohio. My late father, a decent kind, thoughtful man, taught me at a very early age how ridiculous racism always was, even when to advocate this truth, you did so at your own peril. Even when I was only six years old, I thought the only race is the human race.

But considering that notion was difficult and sometimes dangerous. So many of the good people I lived around and their children that I played with, had essentially a racist viewpoint towards other parts of humanity. They justified dehumanizing black folks by claiming they were ignorant nigger monkeys. Wild animals as it were, ready on a moment’s notice , to come up the hill from the valley, to attack them unmercifully.

With such concentrated xenophobia, it is no revelation that my neighbors took comfort in their right to bear arms. After all, is that not what the second amendment is all about: guns to protect you against varmints? One good catholic family in the neighborhood took comfort and pride in knowing that a family member was in the National Guard, and that, in case of a riot, he could shoot niggers legally.

I kept my silence, knowing that the truth was a secret shared by my family only. Besides, our neighbors were good decent people, who happened to be racially insane. How did I know this? Well circumstantial evidence first and foremost. The most intelligent and talented kid at the elementary school I attended was black. For us other kids, he was a kind of oracle.

All of this unfinished business came flooding back that night Senator Obama became the President-elect. What a relief it was! To finally have the vindication that my fellow citizens are exactly that: my fellow citizens.
Perhaps this spells an end to the extreme right and extreme left, of the political spectrum. Those who have been driven by issues to the point of hardened cynicism, will have to reckon with the fact that sometimes justice actually does prevail, that human decency can eventually triumph.

This ship of state, through the unrelenting efforts of a community organizer, has been dragged over what was only recently considered an insurmountable mountain. All peace and blessings for that. These are new waters, in a new time, on which to sail.

Article IV: The Case for Impeachment of George W. Bush

Article IV
MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS
OF CONGRESS TO BELIEVE IRAQ POSED AN
IMMINENT THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, executed a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into believing that the nation of Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging
to our national security interests, thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress’s lawful functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.

The means used to implement this deception were and continue to be,first, allowing, authorizing and sanctioning the manipulation of intelligence analysis by those under his direction and control, including the Vice President and the Vice President’s agents, and second, personally making, or causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-placed subordinates, including the President’s Chief of Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Advisor, and their deputies and spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the citizens of the United States and Congress regarding an alleged urgent threat posed by Iraq, statements that were halftrue, literally true but misleading, and/or made without a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their truth, as well as omitting to state facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:

(A) Notwithstanding the complete absence of intelligence analysis to support a claim that Iraq posed an imminent or urgent threat to the United States and the intelligence community’s assessment that Iraq was in fact not likely to attack the United States unless it was itself attacked, President Bush, both personally and through his agents and subordinates, made, allowed and caused to be made repeated false representations to the citizens and Congress of the United States implying and explicitly stating that such a dire threat existed, including the following:

(1) “States such as these [Iraq, Iran and North Korea] and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.” —President Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002.
(2) “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. He is amassing them to use against our friends our enemies and against us.” —Speech of Vice President Cheney at VFW 103rd National Convention, August 26, 2002.
(3) “The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.” —Address of President Bush to the United Nations General Assembly, September 12, 2002.
(4) “[N]o terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people than the regime of Saddam Hussein and Iraq.” —Statement of Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Congress,September 19, 2002.
(5) “On its present course, the Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency.. . . it has developed weapons of mass death.” —Statement of President Bush at White House, October 2, 2002.
(6) “But the President also believes that this problem has to be dealt with, and if the United Nations won’t deal with it, then the United States, with other likeminded nations, may have to deal with it. We would prefer not to go that route, but the danger is so great, with respect to Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps even terrorists getting hold of such weapons, that it is time for the international community to act, and if it doesn’t act, the President is prepared to act with likeminded nations.” —Statement of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell in interview with Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News, October 30, 2002.
(7) “Today the world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq. A dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce or possess those weapons. We will not permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or terrorize nations which love freedom.” —Speech by President Bush to Prague Atlantic Student Summit, November 20, 2002.
(8) “But the risk of doing nothing, the risk of the security of this country being jeopardized at the hands of a madman with weapons of mass destruction far exceeds the risk of any action we may be forced to take.”—President Bush Meets with National Economic Council at White House,February 25, 2003.
(B) In furtherance of his fraudulent effort to deceive Congress and the citizens of the United States into believing that Iraq and Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States, the President allowed and authorized those acting under his direction and control, including Vice President Richard B. Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Lewis Libby, who reportedly directly to both the President and the Vice President, among others, to pressure intelligence analysts to tailor their assessments and to create special units outside of, and unknown to, the intelligence community in order to secretly obtain unreliable information, to manufacture intelligence, or to reinterpret raw data in ways that would support the Bush administration’s plan to invade Iraq based on a false claim
of urgency despite the lack of justification for such a preemptive action.
(C) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By US Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:

(1) “Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.”
Thus the President willfully and falsely misrepresented Iraq as an urgent threat requiring immediate action thereby subverting the national security interests of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 4000 United States service members; the injuries to tens of thousands of US soldiers; the deaths of more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $527 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt and the ultimate costs of the war between three trillion and five trillion dollars; the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, the lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq.

In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.


Article IV notes
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By US Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information,” June 5, 2008. http://intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf

John Judis, “The Selling of the Iraq War, The First Casualty,” New Republic, June 30, 2003. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0630selling.htm

John Conyers, Constitution in Crisis, Chapter Two, Chronology, 2005.http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/section2.pdf

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Former CIA Director George J. Tenet at Georgetown University,February 5, 2004. http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/dci020504.html

Letter from Former CIA Director George Tenet to Senate Intelligence Committee, October 7, 2002. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-021007-cia01.htm

President Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html

Speech of Vice President Cheney at VFW 103rd National Convention, August 26, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html

Address of President Bush to the United Nations General Assembly, September 12, 2002http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html

Testimony of Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to Senate Armed Services Committee, September 19, 2002. http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=287

Statement of President Bush at White House, October 2, 2002http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-7.html

Statement of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell in Interview with Ellen Ratner, Talk Radio News,October 30, 2002. http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2002/14807.htm

Speech of President Bush to Prague Atlantic Student Summit, November 20, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/11/20021120-4.html

Remarks of President Bush to National Economic Council at White House, February 25, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/images/20030225-6_econ-022403-d-ed-1-515h.html

John Conyers, Constitution in Crisis, Chapter 3, 2005. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/section3b.pdf

Gilbert Burnham, et al, “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq,” The Lancet, October 11, 2006. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/clo2.pdf

Amy Belasco, “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,”

Congressional Research Service, March 14, 2007. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/clo3.pdf

Lawrence Korb, “A Troop Readiness Crisis, Boston Globe, April 11, 2007. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/clo4.pdf

Article III: The case for Impeachment of George W. Bush

Article III
MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO BELIEVE IRAQ POSSESSED WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, SO AS TO MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR WAR

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, executed instead a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into believing that the nation of Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests, thereby interfering with and obstructing
Congress’s lawful functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.

The means used to implement this deception were and continue to be personally making, or causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-placed subordinates, including the President’s Chief of Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Advisor, and their deputies and spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the citizens of the United States and Congress regarding Iraq’s alleged possession of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons that were half-true, literally true but misleading, and/or made without a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their truth, as well as omitting to state facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:

Article III(A)
Long before the March 19, 2003 invasion of Iraq, a wealth of intelligence informed the President and those under his direction and control that Iraq’s stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons had been destroyed well before 1998 and that there was little, if any, credible intelligence that showed otherwise. As reported in the Washington Post in March of 2003, in 1995, Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel had informed US and British intelligence officers that “all weapons—biological,
chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.” In September 2002, the Defense
Intelligence Agency issued a report that concluded: “A substantial amount of Iraq’s chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM actions…[T]here is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has-or will-establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.”

Notwithstanding the absence of evidence proving that such stockpiles existed and in direct contradiction to substantial evidence that showed they did not exist, the President and his subordinates and agents made numerous false representations claiming with certainty that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons that it was developing to use to attack the United States, to wit:

(1) “[T]he notion of a Saddam Hussein with his great oil wealth, with his inventory that he already has of biological and chemical weapons… is, I think, a frightening proposition for anybody who thinks about it.” —Statement of Vice President Cheney on CBS’s Face the Nation, March 24,2002.
(2) “In defiance of the United Nations, Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons.” —Speech of President Bush, October 5, 2002.
(3) “All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified to spray biological agents over wide areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on unmanned aerial vehicles with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland.” —Statement by President Bush from the White House, February 6, 2003.
(B) Despite overwhelming intelligence in the form of statements and reports filed by and on behalf of the CIA, the State Department and the IAEA, The 35 Articles of Impeachment among others, which indicated that the claim was untrue, the President,
and those under his direction and control, made numerous representations claiming and implying through misleading language that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Niger in order to falsely buttress its argument that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, including:

(1) “The regime has the scientists and facilities to build nuclear weapons, and is seeking the materials needed to do so.” —Statement of President Bush from White House, October 2, 2002.
(2) “The [Iraqi] report also failed to deal with issues which have arisen since 1998, including: . . attempts to acquire uranium and the means to enrich it.” —Letter from President Bush to Vice President Cheney and the Senate, January 20, 2003.
(3) “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” —President Bush Delivers State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003.
(C) Despite overwhelming evidence in the form of reports by nuclear weapons experts from the Energy, the Defense and State Departments, as well from outside and international agencies which assessed that aluminum tubes the Iraqis were purchasing were not suitable for nuclear centrifuge use and were, on the contrary, identical to ones used in rockets already being manufactured by the Iraqis, the President, and those under his direction and control, persisted in making numerous false and fraudulent representations implying and stating explicitly that the Iraqis were purchasing the tubes for use in a nuclear weapons program, to wit:

(1) “We do know that there have been shipments going . . . into Iraq…of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to—high-quality aluminum tools [sic] that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.” —Statement of then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, September 8, 2002.
(2) “Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” —President Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003.
(3) “[H]e has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed…. By now, just about everyone has heard of these tubes and we all know that there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes are for. Most US experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium.” —Speech of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations, February 5, 2003.
(D) The President, both personally and acting through those under his direction and control, suppressed material information, selectively declassified information for the improper purposes of retaliating against a whistleblower and presenting a misleading picture of the alleged threat from Iraq, facilitated the exposure of the identity of a covert CIA operative and thereafter not only failed to investigate the improper leaks of classified information from within his administration, but also failed to cooperate with an investigation into possible federal violations resulting from this activity and, finally, entirely undermined the prosecution by commuting
the sentence of Lewis Libby citing false and insubstantial grounds, all in an effort to prevent Congress and the citizens of the United States from discovering the fraudulent nature of the President’s claimed justifications for the invasion of Iraq.
(E) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By US Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, which was released on June 5,2008, concluded that:

(1) “Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.”
(2) “The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.”
(3) Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Jay Rockefeller concluded: “In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.” The President has subverted the national security interests of the United States by setting the stage for the loss of more than 4000 United States service members and the injury to tens of thousands of US soldiers;
the loss of more than 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $500 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt with a long term financial cost of between three and five trillion dollars; the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, the lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq.

In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Article III notes
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By US Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information,” June 5, 2008. http://intelligence. senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf
Iraq on the Record, “Bush Administration’s Public Statements about Chemical and Biological Weapons,” March 16, 2004http://oversight.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/index.asp?viewAll=1&Subject=Chemical+and+Biological
+Weapons&submit=display

Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, “President Clings to Dubious Allegations about Iraq,” The Washington Post, March 17, 2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42517-2003-Mar17?language=printer

Statement of Vice President Cheney on Face the Nation, March 24, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/newsspeeches/speeches/vp20020324-1.html

Radio Address of President Bush to the Nation, October 5, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021005.html

Statement by President Bush from the White House, February 6, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030206-17.html

Congressman John Conyers, “George W. Bush versus the US Constitution,” 2006. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/constitutionincrisis

Statement of President Bush from White House, October 2, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

President Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

Iraq on the Record Report, “The Bush Administration’s Public Statements on Iraq,” by Minority Staff, March 16, 2004, 10-13. http://oversight.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/pdf_admin_iraq_on_the_record_
rep.pdf .

Statement of then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, September 8, 2003. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/08/iraq.debate/

President Bush Delivers State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses UN Security Council, February 5, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html

Murray Waas, “Bush Directed Cheney To Counter War Critic, National Journal, July 3, 2006. http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0703nj1.htm

Elizabeth de la Vega, “Final Jeopardy,” TomDispatch.com, April 9, 2006. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/76008de_la_vega_on_the_president_s_final_jeopardy_question

Letter from Representative Henry Waxman to then White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, July 14, 2005. http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20050714122956-30175.pdf

Letter from Representative Henry Waxman to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, March 16, 2007. http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070316154127-11403.pdf

Letter from Representative Henry Waxman to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, December 3, 2007.http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071203103022.pdf

Jon Ponder, “Did Bush Lie to Federal Investigators in the CIA Leak Case?” Pensito Review, November 21,2007. http://www.pensitoreview.com/2007/11/21/did-bush-lie-to-fitzgerald-too1 Gilbert Burnham, et al, “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq,” October 11, 2006, The Lancet. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/clo2.pdf .

Amy Belasco, “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,”Congressional Research Service, March 14, 2007. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/clo3.pdf

Lawrence Korb, “A Troop Readiness Crisis,” Boston Globe, April 11, 2007. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/clo4.pdf

Article II: The case for Impeachment of George W. Bush

Article II

FALSELY, SYSTEMATICALLY, AND WITH CRIMINAL INTENT CONFLATING THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 WITH MISREPRESENTATION OF IRAQ AS AN IMMINENT SECURITY THREAT
AS PART OF A FRAUDULENT JUSTIFICATION FOR A WAR OF AGGRESSION

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, executed a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States into believing that there was and is a connection between Iraq and Saddam Hussein on the one hand, and the attacks of September 11, 2001 and al Qaeda, on the other hand, so as to falsely justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner that is damaging to the national security interests of the United States, as well as to fraudulently obtain and maintain congressional authorization and funding for the use of such military force against Iraq, thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress’s lawful functions of overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war. The means used to implement this deception were and continue to be, first, allowing, authorizing and sanctioning the manipulation of intelligence analysis by those under his direction and control, including the Vice President and the Vice President’s agents, and second, personally making, or causing, authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-placed subordinates, including the President’s Chief of Staff, the White House Press Secretary and The 35 Articles of Impeachment other White House spokespersons, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Advisor, and their deputies and spokespersons, false and fraudulent representations to the citizens of the United States and Congress regarding an alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and Iraq, on the one hand, and the September 11th attacks and al Qaeda, on the other hand, that were half-true, literally true but misleading, and/or made without a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their truth, as well as omitting to state facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:

(A) On or about September 12, 2001, former terrorism advisor Richard Clarke personally informed the President that neither Saddam Hussein nor Iraq was responsible for the September 11th attacks. On September 18, Clarke submitted to the President’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice a memo he had written in response to George W. Bush’s specific request that stated: (1) the case for linking Hussein to the September 11th attacks was weak; (2) only anecdotal evidence linked Hussein to al Qaeda; (3) Osama Bin Laden resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein; and (4) there was no confirmed reporting of Saddam Hussein cooperating with Bin Laden on unconventional weapons.

(B) Ten days after the September 11th attacks the President received a President’s Daily Briefing which indicated that the US intelligence community had no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11th attacks and that there was “scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.”

(C) In Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary No. 044-02, issued in February 2002, the United States Defense Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein–Al Qaeda conspiracy: “Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control.”

D) The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate gave a “Low Confidence” rating to the notion of whether “in desperation Saddam would share chemical or biological weapons with Al Qaeda.” The CIA never informed the President that there was an operational relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein; on the contrary, its most “aggressive” analysis contained in “Iraq and al-Qaeda-Interpreting a Murky Relationship” dated June 21, 2002 “was that Iraq had had sporadic, wary contacts with Al Qaeda since the mid-1990s rather than a relationship with al Qaeda that has developed over time.”

(E) Notwithstanding his knowledge that neither Saddam Hussein nor Iraq was in any way connected to the September 11th attacks, the President allowed and authorized those acting under his direction and control, including Vice President Richard B. Cheney and Lewis Libby, who reported directly to both the President and the Vice President, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, among others, to pressure intelligence analysts to alter their assessments and to create special units outside of, and unknown to, the intelligence community in order to secretly obtain unreliable information, to manufacture intelligence or reinterpret raw data in ways that would further the Bush administration’s goal of fraudulently establishing a relationship not only between Iraq and al Qaeda, but between Iraq and the attacks of September 11th.

(F) Further, despite his full awareness that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had no relationship to the September 11th attacks, the President, and those acting under his direction and control have, since at least 2002 and continuing to the present, repeatedly issued public statements deliberately worded to mislead, words calculated in their implication to bring unrelated actors and circumstances into an artificially contrived reality thereby facilitating the systematic deception of Congress and the American people. Thus the public and some members of Congress, came to believe, falsely, that there was a connection between Iraq and the attacks of 9/11. This was accomplished through well-publicized statements by the Bush Administration which contrived to continually tie Iraq and 9/11 in the same statements of grave concern without making an explicit charge:

(1) “[If ] Iraq regimes [sic] continues to defy us, and the world, we will move deliberately, yet decisively, to hold Iraq to account…It’s a new world we’re in. We used to think two oceans could separate us from an enemy. On that tragic day, September the 11th, 2001, we found out that’s not the case. We found out this great land of liberty and of freedom and of justice is vulnerable. And therefore we must do everything we can—everything we can—to secure the homeland, to make us safe.” Speech of President Bush in Iowa on September 16, 2002.

(2) “With every step the Iraqi regime takes toward gaining and deploying the most terrible weapons, our own options to confront that regime will narrow. And if an emboldened regime were to supply these weapons to The 35 Articles of Impeachment terrorist allies, then the attacks of September 11th would be a prelude to far greater horrors.” —March 6, 2003, Statement of President Bush in National Press Conference.

(3) “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001—and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men—the shock troops of a hateful ideology—gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of
one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the ‘beginning of the end of America.’ By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation’s resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.” —May 1, 2003, Speech of President Bush on USS Abraham Lincoln.

(4) “Now we’re in a new and unprecedented war against violent Islamic extremists. This is an ideological conflict we face against murderers and killers who try to impose their will. These are the people that attacked us on September the 11th and killed nearly 3,000 people. The stakes are high, and once again, we have had to change our strategic thinking. The major battleground in this war is Iraq.” —June 28, 2007, Speech of President Bush at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

(G) Notwithstanding his knowledge that there was no credible evidence of a working relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and that the intelligence community had specifically assessed that there was no such operational relationship, the President, both personally and through his subordinates and agents, has repeatedly falsely represented, both explicitly and implicitly, and through the misleading use of selectively-chosen facts, to the citizens of the United States and to the Congress that there was and is such an ongoing operational relationship, to wit:

(1) “We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.” —September 28, 2002, Weekly Radio Address of President Bush to the Nation.

(2) “[W]e we need to think about Saddam Hussein using al Qaeda to do his dirty work, to not leave fingerprints behind.” —October 14, 2002, Remarks by President Bush in Michigan.

(3) “We know he’s got ties with al Qaeda.” —November 1, 2002, Speech of President Bush in New Hampshire.

(4) “Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.” —January 28, 2003, President Bush’s State of the Union Address.

(5) “[W]hat I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network…” —February 5, 2003, Speech of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations.

(6) “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and still goes on…. [T]he liberation of Iraq… removed an ally of al Qaeda.” —May 1, 2003, Speech of President Bush on US S. Abraham Lincoln

(H) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By US Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, which was released on June 5, 2008, concluded that:

(1) “Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.”

(2) “The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.” Through his participation and instance in the breathtaking scope of this deception, the President has used the highest office of trust to wage of campaign of deception of such sophistication as to deliberately subvert the national security interests of the United States. His dishonesty set the stage for the loss of more than 4000 United States service members; injuries to tens of thousands of soldiers, the loss of more than 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the loss of approximately $527 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt and the ultimate expenditure of three to five trillion dollars for all costs covering the war; the loss of military readiness within the United States Armed Services due to overextension, the lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of Iraq. In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.


Article II notesSenate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By US
Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, June 5, 2008. http://intelligence.
senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf
Iraq on the Record Report: “The Bush Administration’s Public Statements on Iraq, by Minority Staff,”
March 16, 2004. http://oversight.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/pdf_admin_iraq_on_the_record_rep.
pdf
Elizabeth de la Vega, “White House Criminal Conspiracy,” The Nation, November 14, 2005. http://www.
thenation.com/doc/20051114/delavega .
Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies, New York, Free Press, 2004.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Report, Section 10.3, September 20,
2004. http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch10.htm
Waas, Murray, “Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel,” National Journal 22 November 2005.
Jehl, Douglas, “Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Doubts,” New York Times, November 6,
2005.
“Declassified Key Judgments from National Intelligence Estimate,” October 2002. http://www.fas.org/irp/
cia/product/iraq-wmd.html
Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, (305-307. 321-323), July 9, 2004. http://intelligence.
senate.gov/prewar.pdf
Office of the Inspector General’s Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Undersecretary
of Defense for Policy, Executive Summary, February 9, 2007. http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/
supporting/2007/SASC.DODIGFeithreport.040507.pdf
Pincus, Walter and Priest, Dana. “Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure From Cheney Visits.” Washington Post,
June 5, 2003: A01.
Hersh, Seymour M. “The Stovepipe.” The New Yorker, October 27, 2003.
Speech of President Bush in Davenport, Iowa, September 16, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/
releases/2002/09/20020916-2.html


Article II
Remarks of President Bush in National Press Conference, March 6, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/
news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html
Speech of President Bush aboard USS. Abraham Lincoln, May 1, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/
news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html
Speech of President Bush at Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, June, 28, 2007. http://www.
whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/06/20070628-14.html
Iraq on the Record Report: Bush Administration’s Public Statements on Iraq, by Minority Staff; Iraq-al
Qaeda connection; March 16, 2004. http://oversight.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/index.asp?viewAll
=1&Subject=Al%2DQaeda&submit=display
Radio Address by President Bush to the Nation, September 28, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/
releases/2002/09/20020928.html
Remarks by President Bush in Waterford, Michigan, October 14, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.gov/
news/releases/2002/10/20021014-4.html
Remarks by President Bush in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 1, 2002. http://www.whitehouse.
gov/news/releases/2002/11/20021101-5.html
President Bush Delivers State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/
news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses UN Security Council, February 5, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.
gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html
Speech of President Bush aboard USS. Abraham Lincoln, May 1, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/
news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) Casualty Status, Department of Defense. http://kucinich.house.gov/
UploadedFiles/clo1.pdf
Gilbert Burnham, et al, “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, The Lancet, October 11, 2006. http://
kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/clo2.pdf
Amy Belasco, “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,”
Congressional Research Service, March 14, 2007. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/clo3.pdf
Lawrence Korb, “A troop readiness crisis,” Boston Globe, April 11, 2007. http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/
clo4.pdf

The Case for Impeachment of George W. Bush

In the following weeks I will be posting the full 35 Articles Of Impeachment presented to Congress by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). To read the full Articles of Impeachment along with opening remarks and quotable quotes go here.

Article I
CREATING A SECRET PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN
TO MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE
FOR WAR AGAINST IRAQ

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush,in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President, illegally spent public dollars on a secret propaganda program to manufacture a false cause for war against Iraq.

The Department of Defense (DOD) has engaged in a years-long secret domestic propaganda campaign to promote the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This secret program was defended by the White House Press Secretary following its exposure. This program follows the pattern of crimes detailed in Article I, II, IV and VIII. The mission of this program placed it within the field controlled by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a White House task-force formed in August 2002 to market an invasion of Iraq to the American people.

The group included Karl Rove, I. Lewis Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, Stephen Hadley, Nicholas E. Calio, and James R. Wilkinson. The WHIG produced white papers detailing so-called intelligence of Iraq’s nuclear threat that later proved to be false. This supposed intelligence included the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger as well as the claim that the high strength aluminum tubes Iraq purchased from China were to be used for the sole purpose of building centrifuges to enrich uranium. Unlike the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, the WHIG’s white papers provided “gripping images and stories” and used “literary license” with intelligence. The WHIG’s white papers were written at the same time and by the same people as speeches and talking points prepared for President Bush
and some of his top officials.

The WHIG also organized a media blitz in which, between September 7-8, 2002, President Bush and his top advisers appeared on numerous interviews and all provided similarly gripping images about the possibility of nuclear attack by Iraq. The timing was no coincidence, as Andrew Card explained in an interview regarding waiting until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on military action against Iraq, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”

September 7-8, 2002:

NBC’s Meet the Press: Vice President Cheney accused Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms.

CNN: Then-National Security Adviser Rice said, regarding the likelihood of Iraq obtaining a nuclear weapon, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

CBS: President Bush declared that Saddam was “six months away from developing a weapon,” and cited satellite photos of construction in Iraq where weapons inspectors once visited as evidence that Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms.

The Pentagon military analyst propaganda program was revealed in an April 20, 2002, New York Times article. The program illegally involved “covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties.”

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recruited 75 retired military officers and gave them talking points to deliver on Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC, and according to the New York Times report, which has not been disputed by the Pentagon or the White House, “Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.”

According to the Pentagon’s own internal documents, the military analysts were considered “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who would deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.” In fact, they did deliver the themes and the messages but did not reveal that the Pentagon had provided them with their talking points. Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and Fox News military analyst described this as follows: “It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.’”

Article I

Congress has restricted annual appropriations bills since 1951 with this language: “No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress.”

A March 21, 2005, report by the Congressional Research Service states that publicity or propaganda” is defined by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2)purely partisan activity, or (3) “covert propaganda.”

These concerns about “covert propaganda” were also the basis for the GAO’s standard for determining when government-funded video news releases are illegal:

“The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by encouraging the viewing audience to believe that the broadcasting news organization developed the information. The prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. When the television viewing public does not know that the stories they watched on television news programs about the government were in fact prepared by the government, the stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual -- the essential fact of attribution is missing.”

The White House’s own Office of Legal Council stated in a memorandum written in 2005 following the controversy over the Armstrong Williams scandal:

“Over the years, GAO has interpreted ‘publicity or propaganda’ restrictions to preclude use of appropriated funds for, among other things, so-called ‘covert propaganda.’ ... Consistent with that view, the OLC determined in 1988 that a statutory prohibition on using appropriated funds for ‘publicity or propaganda’ precluded undisclosed agency funding of advocacy by third-party groups. We stated that ‘covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties’ would run afoul of restrictions on using appropriated funds for ‘propaganda.’”

Asked about the Pentagon’s propaganda program at White House press briefing in April 2008, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino defended it, not by arguing that it was legal but by suggesting that it “should” be: “Look, I didn’t know look, I think that you guys should take a step back and look at this look, DOD has made a decision, they’ve decided to stop this program. But I would say that one of the things that we try to do in the administration is get The 35 Articles of Impeachment information out to a variety of people so that everybody else can call them and ask their opinion about something. And I don’t think that that should be against the law. And I think that it’s absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all of those military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I think you can go back and look and think that a lot of their analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk to people.”

In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.

Article I notes

David Barstow, Behind TV Analysts: Pentagon’s Hidden Hand, New York Times, April 20, 2008.”

Center for Media and Democracy, “Pentagon Pundit Scandal Broke the Law.”

Joshua Bolton, “Memorandum For Heads of Departments and Agencies: Use of Government Funds for Video News Releases, March 11, 2005.”

Steven G. Bradbury, “Memorandum For The General Counsels of the Executive Branch, March 1, 2005.

Carl Levin, Letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, April 22, 2008.

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro’s letter to major news outlets asking them to disclose Ethics Standards for Military Analysts, April 24, 2008.

NBC Meet the Press, Interview with Dick Cheney, September 8, 2002.

“Parts of the Message Machine: Excerpts from Documents,” New York Times, April 19, 2008.

Rep. Paul Hodes, “Congressman Hodes Calls for Hearing on Bush Administration Manipulation of Iraq War News Analysts,” April 24, 2008.

David Barstow, “Two Inquiries Set on Pentagon Publicity Effort,” New York Times, May 24, 2008.

The Bailout and What's Next

Yesterday marked a day that will go down in history, when Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike took on full responsibility to protect the interests of taxpaying Americans, and defeated the deceptive bail out bill, defying the dictates of the Administration, the House Majority Leadership, the House Minority Leadership and the special interests on Wall Street.

Obviously Congress must consider quickly another course. There are immediate issues which demand attention and responsible action by the Congress so that the taxpayers, their assets, and their futures are protected.

We MUST do something to protect millions of Americans whose homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions are at risk in a financial system that has become seriously corrupted. We are told that we must stabilize markets in order for the people to be protected. I think we need to protect peoples' homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions, to order to stabilize the market.

We cannot delay taking action. But the action must benefit all Americans, not just a privileged few. Otherwise, more plans will fail, and the financial security of everyone will be at risk.

The $700 billion bailout would have added to our existing unbearable load of national debt, trade deficits, and the cost of paying for the war. It would have been a disaster for the American public and the government for decades and maybe even centuries to come.

To be sure, there are many different reasons why people voted against the bailout. The legislation did not regard in any meaningful way the plight of millions of Americans who are about to lose their homes. It did nothing to strengthen existing regulatory structures or impose new ones at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve in order to protect investors. There were no direct protections for bank depositors. There was nothing to stop further speculation, which is what brought us into this mess in the first place.

This was a bailout for some firms (and investors) on Wall Street, with the idea that in doing so there would be certain, unspecified, general benefits to the economy.

This is a perfect time to open a broader discussion about our financial system, especially our monetary system. Such a discussion is like searching for a needle in a haystack, and then, upon finding it, discussing its qualities at great length. Let me briefly describe the haystack instead.

Here is a very quick explanation of the $700 billion bailout within the context of the mechanics of our monetary and banking system:

The taxpayers loan money to the banks. But the taxpayers do not have the money. So we have to borrow it from the banks to give it back to the banks. But the banks do not have the money to loan to the government. So they create it into existence (through a mechanism called fractional reserve) and then loan it to us, at interest, so we can then give it back to them.

Confused?

This is the system. This is the standard mechanism used to expand the money supply on a daily basis not a special one designed only for the "$700 billion" transaction. People will explain this to you in many different ways, but this is what it comes down to.

The banks needed Congress' approval. Of course in this topsy turvy world, it is the banks which set the terms of the money they are borrowing from the taxpayers. And what do we get for this transaction? Long term debt enslavement of our country. We get to pay back to the banks trillions of dollars ($700 billion with compounded interest) and the banks give us their bad debt which they cull from everywhere in the world.

Who could turn down a deal like this? I did.

The globalization of the debt puts the United States in the position that in order to repay the money that we borrow from the banks (for the banks) we could be forced to accept International Monetary Fund dictates which involve cutting health, social security benefits and all other social spending in addition to reducing wages and exploiting our natural resources. This inevitably leads to a loss of economic, social and political freedom.

Under the failed $700 billion bailout plan, Wall Street's profits are Wall Street's profits and Wall Street's losses are the taxpayers' losses. Profits are capitalized. Losses are socialized.

We are at a teachable moment on matters of money and finance. In the coming days and weeks, I will share with you thoughts about what can be done to take us not just in a new direction, but in a new direction which is just.


Dennis Kucinich
www.Kucinich.us
216-252-9000 877-933-6647

PS Watch the 47 minute 'Money as Debt' animated documentary in http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279. This is a useful, though by no means definitive, introduction to the topic of debt and the monetary system. Let me know what you think.