by Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio
Washington, Jun 10, 2008 - Dennis J. Kucinich of
Ohio
In the United States House of Representatives
Monday, June 9th, 2008
A Resolution
INDEX
Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a
False Case for War Against Iraq.
Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent
Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With
Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part
of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.
Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress
to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction,
to Manufacture a False Case for War.
Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress
to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United
States.
Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of
Aggression.
Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of H. J.
Res114.
Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.
Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the
UN Charter.
Article IX
Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle
Armor.
Article X
Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for
Political Purposes.
Article XI
Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq.
Article XII
Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That
Nation's Natural Resources.
Article XIIII
Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and
Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other
Countries.
Article XIV
Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of
Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the
Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the
Central Intelligence Agency.
Article XV
Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal
Contractors in Iraq.
Article XVI
Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in
Connection With Iraq and US Contractors.
Article XVII
Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without
Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives.
Article XVIII
Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use
of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy.
Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against
Their Will to "Black Sites" Located in Other Nations,
Including Nations Known to Practice Torture.
Article XX
Imprisoning Children.
Article XXI
Misleading Congress and the American People About
Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist
Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing
the Iranian Government.
Article XXII
Creating Secret Laws.
Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered
Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth
Amendment.
Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an
Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private
Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens.
Article XXVI
Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing
Statements.
Article XXVII
Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and
Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply.
Article XXVIII
Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of
the Administration of Justice.
Article XXIX
Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Article XXX
Misleading Congress and the American People in an
Attempt to Destroy Medicare.
Article XXXI
Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of
Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil
Emergency.
Article XXXII
Misleading Congress and the American People,
Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global
Climate Change.
Article XXXIII
Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level
Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in
the US, Prior to 911.
Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of
September 11, 2001.
Article XXXV
Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders.
____________
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for
high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following
articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United
States Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of
Representatives of the United States of America in the
name of itself and of the people of the United States of
America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment
against President George W. Bush for high crimes and
misdemeanors.
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 to
take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has
committed the following abuses of power.
_____________
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.'"
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 U.S. 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 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 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 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 U.S. 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
911. This was accomplished through well-publicized
statements by the Bush Administration which contrived to
continually tie Iraq and 911 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
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 11, 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 U.S.S. 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 U.S. S. Abraham Lincoln.
(H) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence “Report
on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S.
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 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:
(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 U.S. 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, 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 U.S.
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 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 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) 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 U.S.
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 V
ILLEGALLY MISSPENDING FUNDS TO SECRETLY BEGIN 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,
illegally misspent funds to begin a war in secret prior
to any Congressional authorization.
The president used over $2 billion in the summer of 2002
to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. First reported in
Bob Woodward's book, Plan of Attack, and later
confirmed by the Congressional Research Service, Bush
took money appropriated by Congress for Afghanistan and
other programs and—with no Congressional notification --
used it to build airfields in Qatar and to make other
preparations for the invasion of Iraq. This constituted
a violation of Article I, Section 9 of the U.S.
Constitution, as well as a violation of the War Powers
Act of 1973.
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 VI
INVADING IRAQ IN VIOLATION OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF
HJRes114.
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,” exceeded his
Constitutional authority to wage war by invading Iraq in
2003 without meeting the requirements of HJRes 114, the
"Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq
Resolution of 2002" to wit:
(1) HJRes 114 contains several 'Whereas' clauses
consistent with statements being made by the White House
at the time regarding the threat from Iraq as evidenced
by the following:
(A) HJRes 114 states "Whereas Iraq both poses a
continuing threat to the national security of the United
States and international peace and security in the
Persian Gulf region and remains in material and
unacceptable breach of its international obligations by,
among other things, continuing to possess and develop a
significant chemical and biological weapons capability,
actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and
supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;"; and
(B) HJRes 114 states, "Whereas members of Al Qaeda, an
organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the
United States, its citizens, and interests, including
the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are
known to be in Iraq;”
(2) HJRes 114 states that the President must provide a
determination, the truthfulness of which is implied,
that military force is necessary in order to use the
authorization, as evidenced by the following:
(A) Section 3 of HJRes 114 states:
"(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.-In connection with the
exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to
use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or
as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than
48 hours after exercising such authority, make available
to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the
President pro tempore of the Senate his determination
that—
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic
or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not
adequately protect the national security of the United
States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or
(B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant
United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding
Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is
consistent with the United States and other countries
continuing to take the necessary actions against
international terrorist and terrorist organizations,
including those nations, organizations, or persons who
planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist
attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."
(3) On March 18, 2003, President George Bush sent a
letter to Congress stating that he had made that
determination as evidenced by the following:
(A) March 18th, 2003 Letter to Congress stating:
Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for
Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002
(Public Law 107-243), and based on information available
to me, including that in the enclosed document, I
determine that:
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic
and other peaceful means alone will neither (A)
adequately protect the national security of the United
States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor
(B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United
Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law
107-243 is consistent with the United States and other
countries continuing to take the necessary actions
against international terrorists and terrorist
organizations, including those nations, organizations,
or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided
the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11,
2001.
(4) President George Bush knew that these statements
were false as evidenced by:
(A) Information provided with Article I, II, III, IV and
V.
(B) A statement by President George Bush in an interview
with Tony Blair on January 31st 2003: [WH]
Reporter: "One question for you both. Do you believe
that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct
link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?"
President Bush: "I can't make that claim"
(C) An article on February 19th by Terrorism expert
Rohan Gunaratna states, "I could find no evidence of
links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The documentation and
interviews indicated that Al Qaeda regarded Saddam, a
secular leader, as an infidel." [International Herald
Tribune]
(D) According to a February 2nd, 2003 article in the New
York Times: [NYT]
At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, some
investigators said they were baffled by the Bush
administration's insistence on a solid link between Iraq
and Osama bin Laden's network. "We've been looking at
this hard for more than a year and you know what, we
just don't think it's there," a government official
said.
(5) Section 3C of HJRes 114 states that "Nothing in this
joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War
Powers Resolution."
(6) The War Powers Resolution Section 9(d)(1) states:
(d) Nothing in this joint resolution--
(1) is intended to alter the constitutional authority of
the Congress or of the President, or the provision of
existing treaties; or
(7) The United Nations Charter was an existing treaty
and, as shown in Article VIII, the invasion of Iraq
violated that treaty
(8) President George Bush knowingly failed to meet the
requirements of HJRes 114 and violated the requirement
of the War Powers Resolution and, thereby, invaded Iraq
without the authority of Congress.
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 VII
INVADING IRAQ ABSENT A DECLARATION OF 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 launched
a war against Iraq absent any congressional declaration
of war or equivalent action.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 (the War Powers Clause)
makes clear that the United States Congress holds the
exclusive power to decide whether or not to send the
nation into war. "The Congress," the War Powers Clause
states, "shall have power…To declare war…"
The October 2002 congressional resolution on Iraq did
not constitute a declaration of war or equivalent
action. The resolution stated: "The President is
authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States
as he deems necessary and appropriate in order to 1)
defend the national security of the United States
against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and 2)
enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council
resolutions regarding Iraq.” The resolution unlawfully
sought to delegate to the President the decision of
whether or not to initiate a war against Iraq, based on
whether he deemed it "necessary and appropriate.” The
Constitution does not allow Congress to delegate this
exclusive power to the President, nor does it allow the
President to seize this power.
In March 2003, the President launched a war against Iraq
without any constitutional authority.
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 VIII
INVADING IRAQ, A SOVEREIGN NATION, IN VIOLATION OF THE
UN CHARTER AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
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,” violated
United States law by invading the sovereign country of
Iraq in violation of the United Nations Charter to wit:
(1) International Laws ratified by Congress are part of
United States Law and must be followed as evidenced by
the following:
(A) Article VI of the United States Constitution, which
states, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United
States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all
Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law
of the Land;"
(2) The UN Charter, which entered into force following
ratification by the United States in 1945, requires
Security Council approval for the use of force except
for self-defense against an armed attack as evidenced by
the following:
A) Chapter 1, Article 2 of the United Nations Charter
states:
"3.All Members shall settle their international disputes
by peaceful means in such a manner that international
peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
"4.All Members shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any
state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the
Purposes of the United Nations."
(B) Chapter 7, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter
states:
"51. Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the
inherent right of individual or collective self-defense
if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United
Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures
necessary to maintain international peace and security."
(3) There was no armed attack upon the United States by
Iraq.
(4) The Security Council did not vote to approve the use
of force against Iraq as evidenced by:
(A) A United Nation Press release which states that the
United States had failed to convince the Security
Council to approve the use of military force against
Iraq. [UN]
(5) President Bush directed the United States military
to invade Iraq on March 19th, 2003 in violation of the
UN Charter and, therefore, in violation of United States
Law as evidenced by the following:
(A) A letter from President Bush to Congress dated March
21st, 2003 stating, "I directed U.S. Armed Forces,
operating with other coalition forces, to commence
combat operations on March 19, 2003, against Iraq." [WH]
(B) On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary
General of the United Nations, speaking on the invasion,
said, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with
the UN charter. From our point of view, from the charter
point of view, it was illegal." [BBC]
(C) The consequence of the instant and direction of
President George W. Bush, in ordering an attack upon
Iraq, a sovereign nation is in direct violation of
United States Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 118,
Section 2441, governing the offense of war crimes.
(6). In the course of invading and occupying Iraq, the
President, as Commander in Chief, has taken
responsibility for the targeting of civilians,
journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, use of
antipersonnel weapons including cluster bombs in densely
settled urban areas, the use of white phosphorous as a
weapon, depleted uranium weapons, and the use of a new
version of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs. Under the
direction of President George Bush the United States has
engaged in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian
populations, including but not limited to blocking
roads, cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel
stations, planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing
houses, and plowing over orchards.
(A) Under the principle of "command responsibility",
i.e., that a de jure command can be civilian as well as
military, and can apply to the policy command of heads
of state, said command brings President George Bush
within the reach of international criminal law under the
Additional Protocol I of June 8, 1977 to the Geneva
Conventions of August 12, 1949, and Relating to the
Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts,
Article 86 (2). The United States is a state signatory
to Additional Protocol I, on December 12, 1977.
(B) Furthermore, Article 85 (3) of said Protocol I
defines as a grave breach making a civilian population
or individual civilians the object of attacks. This
offense, together with the principle of command
responsibility, places President George Bush's conduct
under the reach of the same law and principles described
as the basis for war crimes prosecution at Nuremburg,
under Article 6 of the Charter of the Nuremberg
Tribunals: including crimes against peace, violations of
the laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity,
similarly codified in the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court, Articles 5 through 8.
(C) The Lancet Report has established massive civilian
casualties in Iraq as a result of the United States'
invasion and occupation of that country.
(D) International laws governing wars of aggression are
completely prohibited under the legal principle of jus
cogens, whether or not a nation has signed or ratified a
particular international agreement.
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 IX
FAILING TO PROVIDE TROOPS WITH BODY ARMOR AND VEHICLE
ARMOR
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, has been
responsible for the deaths of members of the U.S.
military and serious injury and trauma to other
soldiers, by failing to provide available body armor and
vehicle armor.
While engaging in an invasion and occupation of choice,
not fought in self-defense, and not launched in
accordance with any timetable other than the President's
choosing, President Bush sent U.S. troops into danger
without providing them with armor. This shortcoming has
been known for years, during which time, the President
has chosen to allow soldiers and Marines to continue to
face unnecessary risk to life and limb rather then
providing them with armor.
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 X
FALSIFYING ACCOUNTS OF U.S. TROOP DEATHS AND INJURIES
FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES
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, promoted
false propaganda stories about members of the United
States military, including individuals both dead and
injured.
The White House and the Department of Defense (DOD) in
2004 promoted a false account of the death of Specialist
Pat Tillman, reporting that he had died in a hostile
exchange, delaying release of the information that he
had died from friendly fire, shot in the forehead three
times in a manner that led investigating doctors to
believe he had been shot at close range.
A 2005 report by Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones reported that
in the days immediately following Specialist Tillman's
death, U.S. Army investigators were aware that
Specialist Tillman was killed by friendly fire, shot
three times to the head, and that senior Army
commanders, including Gen. John Abizaid, knew of this
fact within days of the shooting but nevertheless
approved the awarding of the Silver Star, Purple Heart,
and a posthumous promotion.
On April 24, 2007, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, the last soldier
to see Specialist Pat Tillman alive, testified before
the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that
he was warned by superiors not to divulge information
that a fellow soldier killed Specialist Tillman,
especially to the Tillman family. The White House
refused to provide requested documents to the committee,
citing "executive branch confidentiality interests."
The White House and DOD in 2003 promoted a false account
of the injury of Jessica Dawn Lynch, reporting that she
had been captured in a hostile exchange and had been
dramatically rescued. On April 2, 2003, the DOD released
a video of the rescue and claimed that Lynch had stab
and bullet wounds, and that she had been slapped about
on her hospital bed and interrogated. Iraqi doctors and
nurses later interviewed, including Dr. Harith Al-Houssona,
a doctor in the Nasirya hospital, described Lynch's
injuries as "a broken arm, a broken thigh, and a
dislocated ankle.” According to Al-Houssona, there was
no sign of gunshot or stab wounds, and Lynch's injuries
were consistent with those that would be suffered in a
car accident. Al-Houssona's claims were later confirmed
in a U.S. Army report leaked on July 10, 2003.
Lynch denied that she fought or was wounded fighting,
telling Diane Sawyer that the Pentagon "used me to
symbolize all this stuff. It's wrong. I don't know why
they filmed [my rescue] or why they say these things....
I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. I went down
praying to my knees. And that's the last I remember."
She reported excellent treatment in Iraq, and that one
person in the hospital even sang to her to help her feel
at home.
On April 24, 2007 Lynch testified before the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
"[Right after my capture], tales of great heroism were
being told. My parent's home in Wirt County was under
siege of the media all repeating the story of the little
girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting. It was
not true.... I am still confused as to why they chose to
lie."
The White House had heavily promoted the false story of
Lynch's rescue, including in a speech by President Bush
on April 28, 2003. After the fiction was exposed, the
president awarded Lynch the Bronze Star.
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 XI
ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT U.S. MILITARY BASES IN 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 violated
an act of Congress that he himself signed into law by
using public funds to construct permanent U.S. military
bases in Iraq.
On January 28, 2008, President George W. Bush signed
into law the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2008 (H.R. 4986). Noting that the Act
"authorizes funding for the defense of the United States
and its interests abroad, for military construction, and
for national security-related energy programs," the
president added the following "signing statement":
"Provisions of the Act, including sections 841, 846,
1079, and 1222, purport to impose requirements that
could inhibit the President's ability to carry out his
constitutional obligations to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed, to protect national security, to
supervise the executive branch, and to execute his
authority as Commander in Chief. The executive branch
shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent
with the constitutional authority of the President."
Section 1222 clearly prohibits the expenditure of money
for the purpose of establishing permanent U.S. military
bases in Iraq. The construction of over $1 billion in
U.S. military bases in Iraq, including runways for
aircraft, continues despite Congressional intent, as the
Administration intends to force upon the Iraqi
government such terms which will assure the bases remain
in Iraq.
Iraqi officials have informed members of Congress in May
2008 of the strong opposition within the Iraqi
parliament and throughout Iraq to the agreement that the
administration is trying to negotiate with Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The agreement seeks to assure
a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq of which military
bases are the most obvious, sufficient and necessary
construct, thus clearly defying Congressional intent as
to the matter and meaning of "permanency.”
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 XII
INITIATING A WAR AGAINST IRAQ FOR CONTROL OF THAT
NATION'S NATURAL RESOURCES
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, invaded
and occupied a foreign nation for the purpose, among
other purposes, of seizing control of that nation's oil.
The White House and its representatives in Iraq have,
since the occupation of Baghdad began, attempted to gain
control of Iraqi oil. This effort has included
pressuring the new Iraqi government to pass a
hydrocarbon law. Within weeks of the fall of Saddam
Hussein in 2003, the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) awarded a $240 million contract to
Bearing Point, a private U.S. company. A Bearing Point
employee, based in the US embassy in Baghdad, was hired
to advise the Iraqi Ministry of Oil on drawing up the
new hydrocarbon law. The draft law places executives of
foreign oil companies on a council with the task of
approving their own contracts with Iraq; it denies the
Iraqi National Oil Company exclusive rights for the
exploration, development, production, transportation,
and marketing of Iraqi oil, and allows foreign companies
to control Iraqi oil fields containing 80 percent of
Iraqi oil for up to 35 years through contracts that can
remain secret for up to 2 months. The draft law itself
contains secret appendices.
President Bush provided unrelated reasons for the
invasion of Iraq to the public and Congress, but those
reasons have been established to have been categorically
fraudulent, as evidenced by the herein mentioned
Articles of Impeachment I, II, III, IV, VI, and VII.
Parallel to the development of plans for war against
Iraq, the U.S. State Department's Future of Iraq
project, begun as early as April 2002, involved meetings
in Washington and London of 17 working groups, each
composed of 10 to 20 Iraqi exiles and international
experts selected by the State Department. The Oil and
Energy working group met four times between December
2002 and April 2003. Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, later the
Iraqi Oil Minister, was a member of the group, which
concluded that Iraq "should be opened to international
oil companies as quickly as possible after the war," and
that, "the country should establish a conducive business
environment to attract investment of oil and gas
resources.” The same group recommended
production-sharing agreements with foreign oil
companies, the same approach found in the draft
hydrocarbon law, and control over Iraq's oil resources
remains a prime objective of the Bush Administration.
Prior to his election as Vice President, Dick Cheney,
then-CEO of Halliburton, in a speech at the Institute of
Petroleum in 1999 demonstrated a keen awareness of the
sensitive economic and geopolitical role of Middle East
oil resources saying: "By 2010, we will need on the
order of an additional 50 million barrels a day. So
where is the oil going to come from? Governments and
national oil companies are obviously controlling about
90 percent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a
government business. While many regions of the world
offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with
two-thirds of the world's oil and lowest cost, is still
where the prize ultimately lies. Even though companies
are anxious for greater access there, progress continues
to be slow.''
The Vice President led the work of a secret energy task
force, as described in Article XXXII below, a task force
that focused on, among other things, the acquisition of
Iraqi oil through developing a controlling private
corporate interest in said oil.
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 XIII
CREATING A SECRET TASK FORCE TO DEVELOP ENERGY AND
MILITARY POLICIES WITH RESPECT TO IRAQ AND OTHER
COUNTRIES
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 to
take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has both
personally and acting through his agents and
subordinates, together with the Vice President, created
a secret task force to guide our nation's energy policy
and military policy, and undermined Congress' ability to
legislate by thwarting attempts to investigate the
nature of that policy.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report on the
Cheney Energy Task Force, in August 2003, described the
creation of this task force as follows:
"In a January 29, 2001, memorandum, the President
established NEPDG [the National Energy Policy
Development Group]--comprised of the Vice President,
nine cabinet-level officials, and four other senior
administration officials--to gather information,
deliberate, and make recommendations to the President by
the end of fiscal year 2001. The President called on the
Vice President to chair the group, direct its work and,
as necessary, establish subordinate working groups to
assist NEPDG."
The four "other senior administration officials were the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the
Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for
Policy, the Assistant to the President for Economic
Policy, and the Deputy Assistant to the President for
Intergovernmental Affairs.
The GAO report found that:
"In developing the National Energy Policy report, the
NEPDG Principals, Support Group, and participating
agency officials and staff met with, solicited input
from, or received information and advice from nonfederal
energy stakeholders, principally petroleum, coal,
nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industry
representatives and lobbyists. The extent to which
submissions from any of these stakeholders were
solicited, influenced policy deliberations, or were
incorporated into the final report cannot be determined
based on the limited information made available to GAO.
NEPDG met and conducted its work in two distinct phases:
the first phase culminated in a March 19, 2001, briefing
to the President on challenges relating to energy supply
and the resulting economic impact; the second phase
ended with the May 16, 2001, presentation of the final
report to the President. The Office of the Vice
President's (OVP) unwillingness to provide the NEPDG
records or other related information precluded GAO from
fully achieving its objectives and substantially limited
GAO's ability to comprehensively analyze the NEPDG
process.
"None of the key federal entities involved in the NEPDG
effort provided GAO with a complete accounting of the
costs that they incurred during the development of the
National Energy Policy report. The two federal entities
responsible for funding the NEPDG effort—OVP and the
Department of Energy (DOE)—did not provide the
comprehensive cost information that GAO requested. OVP
provided GAO with 77 pages of information, two-thirds of
which contained no cost information while the remaining
one-third contained some miscellaneous information of
little to no usefulness. OVP stated that it would not
provide any additional information. DOE, the Department
of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) provided GAO with estimates of certain costs and
salaries associated with the NEPDG effort, but these
estimates, all calculated in different ways, were not
comprehensive."
In 2003, the Commerce Department disclosed a partial
collection of materials from the NEPDG, including
documents, maps, and charts, dated March 2001, of
Iraq's, Saudi Arabia's and the United Arab Emirates' oil
fields, pipelines, refineries, tanker terminals, and
development projects.
On November 16, 2005, the Washington Post reported on a
White House document showing that oil company executives
had met with the NEPDG, something that some of those
same executives had just that week denied in
Congressional testimony. The Bush Administration had not
corrected the inaccurate testimony.
On July 18, 2007, the Washington Post reported the full
list of names of those who had met with the NEPDG..
In 1998 Kenneth Derr, then chief executive of Chevron,
told a San Francisco audience, "Iraq possesses huge
reserves of oil and gas, reserves I'd love Chevron to
have access to.” According to the GAO report, Chevron
provided detailed advice to the NEPDG.
In March 2001, the NEPDG recommended that the United
States Government support initiatives by Middle Eastern
countries "to open up areas of their energy sectors to
foreign investment.” Following the invasion of Iraq, the
United States has pressured the new Iraqi parliament to
pass a hydrocarbon law that would do exactly that. The
draft law, if passed, would take the majority of Iraq's
oil out of the exclusive hands of the Iraqi Government
and open it to international oil companies for a
generation or more. The Bush administration hired
Bearing Point, a U.S. company, to help write the law in
2004. It was submitted to the Iraqi Council of
Representatives in May 2007.
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 XIV
MISPRISION OF A FELONY, MISUSE AND EXPOSURE OF
CLASSIFIED INFORMATION AND OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE IN THE
MATTER OF VALERIE PLAME WILSON, CLANDESTINE AGENT OF THE
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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,
(1) suppressed material information;
(2) selectively declassified information for the
improper purposes of retaliating against a whistleblower
and presenting a misleading picture of the alleged
threat from Iraq;
(3) facilitated the exposure of the identity of Valerie
Plame Wilson who had theretofore been employed as a
covert CIA operative;
(4) failed to investigate the improper leaks of
classified information from within his administration;
(5) failed to cooperate with an investigation into
possible federal violations resulting from this
activity; and
(6) 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 deceitful nature of the President's
claimed justifications for the invasion of Iraq.
In facilitating this exposure of classified information
and the subsequent cover-up, in all of these actions and
decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a
manner contrary to his trust as President, 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 XV
PROVIDING IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION FOR CRIMINAL
CONTRACTORS IN 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,
established policies granting United States government
contractors and their employees in Iraq immunity from
Iraqi law, U.S. law, and international law.
Lewis Paul Bremer III, then-Director of Reconstruction
and Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq, on June
27, 2004, issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order
Number 17, which granted members of the U.S. military,
U.S. mercenaries, and other U.S. contractor employees
immunity from Iraqi law.
The Bush Administration has chosen not to apply the
Uniform Code of Military Justice or United States law to
mercenaries and other contractors employed by the United
States government in Iraq.
Operating free of Iraqi or U.S. law, mercenaries have
killed many Iraqi civilians in a manner that observers
have described as aggression and not as self-defense.
Many U.S. contractors have also alleged that they have
been the victims of aggression (in several cases of
rape) by their fellow contract employees in Iraq. These
charges have not been brought to trial, and in several
cases the contracting companies and the U.S. State
Department have worked together in attempting to cover
them up.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United
States is party, and which under Article VI of the U.S.
Constitution is therefore the supreme law of the United
States, it is the responsibility of an occupying force
to ensure the protection and human rights of the
civilian population. The efforts of President Bush and
his subordinates to attempt to establish a lawless zone
in Iraq are in violation of the law.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President 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 XVI
RECKLESS MISSPENDING AND WASTE OF US TAX DOLLARS IN
CONNECTION WITH IRAQ CONTRACTORS
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,
recklessly wasted public funds on contracts awarded to
close associates, including companies guilty of
defrauding the government in the past, contracts awarded
without competitive bidding, "cost-plus" contracts
designed to encourage cost overruns, and contracts not
requiring satisfactory completion of the work. These
failures have been the rule, not the exception, in the
awarding of contracts for work in the United States and
abroad over the past seven years. Repeated exposure of
fraud and waste has not been met by the president with
correction of systemic problems, but rather with
retribution against whistleblowers.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
reported on Iraq reconstruction contracting:
"From the beginning, the Administration adopted a flawed
contracting approach in Iraq. Instead of maximizing
competition, the Administration opted to award no-bid,
cost-plus contracts to politically connected
contractors. Halliburton's secret $7 billion contract to
restore Iraq's oil infrastructure is the prime example.
Under this no-bid, cost-plus contract, Halliburton was
reimbursed for its costs and then received an additional
fee, which was a percentage of its costs. This created
an incentive for Halliburton to run up its costs in
order to increase its potential profit.
"Even after the Administration claimed it was awarding
Iraq contracts competitively in early 2004, real price
competition was missing. Iraq was divided geographically
and by economic sector into a handful of fiefdoms.
Individual contractors were then awarded monopoly
contracts for all of the work within given fiefdoms.
Because these monopoly contracts were awarded before
specific projects were identified, there was no actual
price competition for more than 2,000 projects.
"In the absence of price competition, rigorous
government oversight becomes essential for
accountability. Yet the Administration turned much of
the contract oversight work over to private companies
with blatant conflicts of interest. Oversight
contractors oversaw their business partners and, in some
cases, were placed in a position to assist their own
construction work under separate monopoly construction
contracts. . . .
"Under Halliburton's two largest Iraq contracts,
Pentagon auditors found $1 billion in 'questioned' costs
and over $400 million in 'unsupported' costs. Former
Halliburton employees testified that the company charged
$45 for cases of soda, billed $100 to clean 15- pound
bags of laundry, and insisted on housing its staff as
the five-star Kempinski hotel in Kuwait. Halliburton
truck drivers testified that the company 'torched' brand
new $85,000 trucks rather than perform relatively minor
repairs and regular maintenance. Halliburton procurement
officials described the company's informal motto in Iraq
as 'Don't worry about price. It's cost-plus.’ A
Halliburton manager was indicted for 'major fraud
against the United States' for allegedly billing more
than $5.5 billion for work that should have cost only
$685,000 in exchange for a $1 million kickback from a
Kuwaiti subcontractor....
"The Air Force found that another U.S. government
contractor, Custer Battles, set up shell subcontractors
to inflate prices. Those overcharges were passed along
to the U.S government under the company's cost-plus
contract to provide security for Baghdad International
Airport. In one case, the company allegedly took
Iraqi-owned forklifts, re-painted them, and leased them
to the U.S. government.
"Despite the spending of billions of taxpayer dollars,
U.S. reconstruction efforts in keys sectors of the Iraqi
economy are failing. Over two years after the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq, oil and electricity production has
fallen below pre-war levels. The Administration has
failed to even measure how many Iraqis lack access to
drinkable water."
"Constitution in Crisis," a book by Congressman John
Conyers, details the Bush Administration's response when
contract abuse is made public:
"Bunnatine Greenhouse was the chief contracting officer
at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has
managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq. In
October 2004, Ms. Greenhouse came forward and revealed
that top Pentagon officials showed improper favoritism
to Halliburton when awarding military contracts to
Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR).
Greenhouse stated that when the Pentagon awarded
Halliburton a five-year, $7 billion contract, it
pressured her to withdraw her objections, actions which
she claimed were unprecedented in her experience.
"On June 27, 2005, Ms. Greenhouse testified before
Congress, detailing that the contract award process was
compromised by improper influence by political
appointees, participation by Halliburton officials in
meetings where bidding requirements were discussed, and
a lack of competition. She stated that the Halliburton
contracts represented "the most blatant and improper
contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my
professional career.” Days before the hearing, the
acting general counsel of the Army Corps of Engineers
paid Ms. Greenhouse a visit and reportedly let it be
known that it would not be in her best interest to
appear voluntarily.
"On August 27, 2005, the Army demoted Ms. Greenhouse,
removing her from the elite Senior Executive Service and
transferring her to a lesser job in the corps' civil
works division. As Frank Rich of The New York Times
described the situation, '[H]er crime was not
obstructing justice but pursuing it by vehemently
questioning irregularities in the awarding of some $7
billion worth of no-bid contracts in Iraq to the
Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root.’ The demotion
was in apparent retaliation for her speaking out against
the abuses, even though she previously had stellar
reviews and over 20 years of experience in military
procurement."
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
reports on domestic contracting:
"The Administration's domestic contracting record is no
better than its record on Iraq. Waste, fraud, and abuse
appear to be the rule rather than the exception....
"A Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
cost-plus contract with NCS Pearson, Inc., to hire
federal airport screeners was plagued by poor management
and egregious waste. Pentagon auditors challenged $303
million (over 40%) of the $741 million spent by Pearson
under the contract. The auditors detailed numerous
concerns with the charges of Pearson and its
subcontractors, such as '$20-an-hour temporary workers
billed to the government at $48 per hour, subcontractors
who signed out $5,000 in cash at a time with no
supporting documents, $377,273.75 in unsubstantiated
long distance phone calls, $514,201 to rent tents that
flooded in a rainstorm, [and] $4.4 million in "no show"
fees for job candidates who did not appear for tests.’ A
Pearson employee who supervised Pearson's hiring efforts
at 43 sites in the U.S. described the contract as 'a
waste a taxpayer's money.’ The CEO of one Pearson
subcontractor paid herself $5.4 million for nine months
work and provided herself with a $270,000 pension....
"The Administration is spending $239 million on the
Integrated Surveillance and Intelligence System, a
no-bid contract to provide thousands of cameras and
sensors to monitor activity on the Mexican and Canadian
borders. Auditors found that the contractor,
International Microwave Corp., billed for work it never
did and charged for equipment it never provided, 'creat[ing]
a potential for overpayments of almost $13 million.’
Moreover, the border monitoring system reportedly does
not work....
"After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening
equipment for the nation's entry points, the Department
of Homeland Security is now 'moving to replace or alter
much of' it because 'it is ineffective, unreliable or
too expensive to operate.’ For example, radiation
monitors at ports and borders reportedly could not
'differentiate between radiation emitted by a nuclear
bomb and naturally occurring radiation from everyday
material like cat litter or ceramic tile . . . .’
"The TSA awarded Boeing a cost-plus contract to install
over 1,000 explosive detection systems for airline
passenger luggage. After installation, the machines
'began to register false alarms' and '[s]creeners were
forced to open and hand-check bags.’ To reduce the
number of false alarms, the sensitivity of the machines
was lowered, which reduced the effectiveness of the
detectors. Despite these serious problems, Boeing
received an $82 million profit that the Inspector
General determined to be 'excessive' . . . .
"The FBI spent $170 million on a 'Virtual Case File'
system that does not operate as required. After three
years of work under a cost-plus contract failed to
produce a functional system, the FBI scrapped the
program and began work on the new 'Sentinel' Case File
System....
"The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General
found that taxpayer dollars were being lavished on perks
for agency officials. One IG report found that TSA spent
over $400,000 on its first leader's executive office
suite. Another found that TSA spent $350,000 on a
gold-plated gym....
"According to news reports, Pentagon auditors ...
examined a contract between the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) and Unisys, a technology and
consulting company, for the upgrade of airport computer
networks. Among other irregularities, government
auditors found that Unisys may have overbilled for as
much as 171,000 hours of labor and overtime by charging
for employees at up to twice their actual rate of
compensation. While the cost ceiling for the contract
was set at $1 billion, Unisys has reportedly billed the
government $940 million with more than half of the
seven-year contract remaining and more than half of the
TSA-monitored airports still lacking upgraded networks."
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XVII
ILLEGAL DETENTION: DETAINING INDEFINITELY AND WITHOUT
CHARGE PERSONS BOTH U.S. CITIZENS AND FOREIGN CAPTIVES
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, violated
United States and International Law and the US
Constitution by illegally detaining indefinitely and
without charge persons both US citizens and foreign
captives.
In a statement on Feb. 7, 2002, President Bush declared
that in the US fight against Al Qaeda, "none of the
provisions of Geneva apply," thus rejecting the Geneva
Conventions that protect captives in wars and other
conflicts. By that time, the administration was already
transporting captives from the war in Afghanistan, both
alleged Al Qaeda members and supporters, and also
Afghans accused of being fighters in the army of the
Taliban government, to US-run prisons in Afghanistan and
to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The
round-up and detention without charge of Muslim
non-citizens inside the US began almost immediately
after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, with some being held as long as
nine months. The US, on orders of the president, began
capturing and detaining without charge alleged terror
suspects in other countries and detaining them abroad
and at the US Naval base in Guantanamo.
Many of these detainees have been subjected to
systematic abuse, including beatings, which have been
subsequently documented by news reports, photographic
evidence, testimony in Congress, lawsuits, and in the
case of detainees in the US, by an investigation
conducted by the Justice Department's Office of the
Inspector General.
In violation of US law and the Geneva Conventions, the
Bush Administration instructed the Department of Justice
and the US Department of Defense to refuse to provide
the identities or locations of these detainees, despite
requests from Congress and from attorneys for the
detainees. The president even declared the right to
detain US citizens indefinitely, without charge and
without providing them access to counsel or the courts,
thus depriving them of their constitutional and basic
human rights. Several of those US citizens were held in
military brigs in solitary confinement for as long as
three years before being either released or transferred
to civilian detention.
Detainees in US custody in Iraq and Guantanamo have, in
violation of the Geneva Conventions, been hidden from
and denied visits by the International Red Cross
organization, while thousands of others in Iraq,
Guantanamo, Afghanistan, ships in foreign off-shore
sites, and an unknown number of so-called "black sites"
around the world have been denied any opportunity to
challenge their detentions. The president, acting on his
own claimed authority, has declared the hundreds of
detainees at Guantanamo Bay to be "enemy combatants" not
subject to US law and not even subject to military law,
but nonetheless potentially liable to the death penalty.
The detention of individuals without due process
violates the 5th Amendment. While the Bush
administration has been rebuked in several court cases,
most recently that of Ali al-Marri, it continues to
attempt to exceed constitutional limits.
In all of these actions violating US and International
law, 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 XVIII
TORTURE: SECRETLY AUTHORIZING, AND ENCOURAGING THE USE
OF TORTURE AGAINST CAPTIVES IN AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, AND
OTHER PLACES, AS A MATTER OF OFFICIAL POLICY
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, violated
United States and International Law and the US
Constitution by secretly authorizing and encouraging the
use of torture against captives in Afghanistan, Iraq in
connection with the so-called "war" on terror.
In violation of the Constitution, US law, the Geneva
Conventions (to which the US is a signatory), and in
violation of basic human rights, torture has been
authorized by the President and his administration as
official policy. Water-boarding, beatings, faked
executions, confinement in extreme cold or extreme heat,
prolonged enforcement of painful stress positions, sleep
deprivation, sexual humiliation, and the defiling of
religious articles have been practiced and exposed as
routine at Guantanamo, at Abu Ghraib Prison and other US
detention sites in Iraq, and at Bagram Air Base in
Afghanistan. The president, besides bearing
responsibility for authorizing the use of torture, also
as Commander in Chief, bears ultimate responsibility for
the failure to halt these practices and to punish those
responsible once they were exposed.
The administration has sought to claim the abuse of
captives is not torture, by redefining torture. An
August 1, 2002 memorandum from the Administration's
Office of Legal Counsel Jay S. Bybee addressed to White
House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales concluded that to
constitute torture, any pain inflicted must be akin to
that accompanying "serious physical injury, such as
organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even
death." The memorandum went on to state that even should
an act constitute torture under that minimal definition,
it might still be permissible if applied to
"interrogations undertaken pursuant to the President's
Commander-in-Chief powers." The memorandum further
asserted that "necessity or self-defense could provide
justifications that would eliminate any criminal
liability."
This effort to redefine torture by calling certain
practices simply "enhanced interrogation techniques"
flies in the face of the Third Geneva Convention
Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which
states that "No physical or mental torture, nor any
other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of
war to secure from them information of any kind
whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not
be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or
disadvantageous treatment of any kind."
Torture is further prohibited by the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the paramount international
human rights statement adopted unanimously by the United
Nations General Assembly, including the United States,
in 1948. Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment is also prohibited by
international treaties ratified by the United States:
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture and Other
Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
(CAT).
When the Congress, in the Defense Authorization Act of
2006, overwhelmingly passed a measure banning torture
and sent it to the President's desk for signature, the
President, who together with his vice president, had
fought hard to block passage of the amendment, signed
it, but then quietly appended a signing statement in
which he pointedly asserted that as Commander-in-Chief,
he was not bound to obey its strictures.
The administration's encouragement of and failure to
prevent torture of American captives in the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, and in the battle against terrorism,
has undermined the rule of law in the US and in the US
military, and has seriously damaged both the effort to
combat global terrorism, and more broadly, America's
image abroad. In his effort to hide torture by US
military forces and the CIA, the president has defied
Congress and has lied to the American people, repeatedly
claiming that the US "does not torture."
In all of these actions and decisions in violation of US
and International law, 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 XIX
RENDITION: KIDNAPPING PEOPLE AND TAKING THEM AGAINST
THEIR WILL TO "BLACK SITES" LOCATED IN OTHER NATIONS,
INCLUDING NATIONS KNOWN TO PRACTICE TORTURE
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, violated
United States and International Law and the US
Constitution by kidnapping people and renditioning them
to "black sites" located in other nations, including
nations known to practice torture.
The president has publicly admitted that since the 9-11
attacks in 2001, the US has been kidnapping and
transporting against the will of the subject (renditioning)
in its so-called "war" on terror—even people captured by
US personnel in friendly nations like Sweden, Germany,
Macedonia and Italy—and ferrying them to places like
Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and to prisons operated
in Eastern European countries, African Countries and
Middle Eastern countries where security forces are known
to practice torture.
These people are captured and held indefinitely, without
any charges being filed, and are held without being
identified to the Red Cross, or to their families. Many
are clearly innocent, and several cases, including one
in Canada and one in Germany, have demonstrably been
shown subsequently to have been in error, because of a
similarity of names or because of misinformation
provided to US authorities.
Such a policy is in clear violation of US and
International Law, and has placed the United States in
the position of a pariah state. The CIA has no law
enforcement authority, and cannot legally arrest or
detain anyone. The program of "extraordinary rendition"
authorized by the president is the substantial
equivalent of the policies of "disappearing" people,
practices widely practiced and universally condemned in
the military dictatorships of Latin America during the
late 20th Century.
The administration has claimed that prior
administrations have practiced extraordinary rendition,
but, while this is technically true, earlier renditions
were used only to capture people with outstanding arrest
warrants or convictions who were outside in order to
deliver them to stand trial or serve their sentences in
the US. The president has refused to divulge how many
people have been subject to extraordinary rendition
since September 2001. It is possible that some have died
in captivity. As one US official has stated off the
record, regarding the program, some of those who were
renditioned were later delivered to Guantanamo, while
others were sent there directly. An example of this is
the case of six Algerian Bosnians who, immediately after
being cleared by the Supreme Court of Bosnia Herzegovina
in January 2002 of allegedly plotting to attack the US
and UK embassies, were captured, bound and gagged by US
special forces and renditioned to Guantanamo.
In perhaps the most egregious proven case of rendition,
Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was picked
up in September 2002 while transiting through New York's
JFK airport on his way home to Canada. Immigration and
FBI officials detained and interrogated him for nearly
two weeks, illegally denying him his rights to access
counsel, the Canadian consulate, and the courts.
Executive branch officials asked him if he would
volunteer to go to Syria, where he hadn't been in 15
years, and Maher refused.
Maher was put on a private jet plane operated by the CIA
and sent to Jordan, where he was beaten for 8 hours, and
then delivered to Syria, where he was beaten and
interrogated for 18 hours a day for a couple of weeks.
He was whipped on his back and hands with a 2-inch thick
electric cable and asked questions similar to those he
had been asked in the United States. For over ten months
Maher was held in an underground grave-like cell – 3 x 6
x 7 feet – which was damp and cold, and in which the
only light came in through a hole in the ceiling. After
a year of this, Maher was released without any charges.
He is now back home in Canada with his family. Upon his
release, the Syrian Government announced he had no links
to Al Qaeda, and the Canadian Government has also said
they've found no links to Al Qaeda. The Canadian
Government launched a Commission of Inquiry into the
Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar,
to investigate the role of Canadian officials, but the
Bush Administration has refused to cooperate with the
Inquiry.
Hundreds of flights of CIA-chartered planes have been
documented as having passed through European countries
on extraordinary rendition missions like that involving
Maher Arar, but the administration refuses to state how
many people have been subjects of this illegal program.
The same U.S. laws prohibiting aiding and abetting
torture also prohibit sending someone to a country where
there is a substantial likelihood they may be tortured.
Article 3 of CAT prohibits forced return where there is
a "substantial likelihood" that an individual "may be in
danger of" torture, and has been implemented by federal
statute. Article 7 of the ICCPR prohibits return to
country of origin where individuals may be "at risk" of
either torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Under international Human Rights law, transferring a POW
to any nation where he or she is likely to be tortured
or inhumanely treated violates Article 12 of the Third
Geneva Convention, and transferring any civilian who is
a protected person under the Fourth Geneva Convention is
a grave breach and a criminal act.
In situations of armed conflict, both international
human rights law and humanitarian law apply. A person
captured in the zone of military hostilities "must have
some status under international law; he is either a
prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third
Convention, [or] a civilian covered by the Fourth
Convention….There is no intermediate status; nobody in
enemy hands can be outside the law." Although the state
is obligated to repatriate Prisoners of War as soon as
hostilities cease, the ICRC's commentary on the 1949
Conventions states that prisoners should not be
repatriated where there are serious reasons for fearing
that repatriating the individual would be contrary to
general principles of established international law for
the protection of human beings Thus, all of the
Guantánamo detainees as well as renditioned captives are
protected by international human rights protections and
humanitarian law.
By his actions as outlined above, the President has
abused his power, broken the law, deceived the American
people, and placed American military personnel, and
indeed all Americans—especially those who may travel or
live abroad--at risk of similar treatment. Furthermore,
in the eyes of the rest of the world, the President has
made the US, once a model of respect for Human Rights
and respect for the rule of law, into a state where
international law is neither respected nor upheld.
In all of these actions and decisions in violation of
United States and International law, 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 XX
IMPRISONING CHILDREN
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, authorized or permitted the arrest and
detention of at least 2500 children under the age of 18
as "enemy combatants" in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at
Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in violation of the Fourth
Geneva Convention relating to the treatment of
"protected persons" and the Optional Protocol to the
Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child on the
Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, signed by the
US in 2002 . To wit:
In May 2008, the US government reported to the United
Nations that it has been holding upwards of 2,500
children under the age of 18 as "enemy combatants" at
detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo
Bay (where there was a special center, Camp Iguana,
established just for holding children). The length of
these detentions has frequently exceeded a year, and in
some cases has stretched to five years. Some of these
detainees have reached adulthood in detention and are
now not being reported as child detainees because they
are no longer children.
In addition to detaining children as "enemy combatants,"
it has been widely reported in media reports that the US
military in Iraq has, based upon Pentagon rules of
engagement, been treating boys as young as 14 years of
age as "potential combatants," subject to arrest and
even to being killed. In Fallujah, in the days ahead of
the November 2004 all-out assault, Marines ringing the
city were reported to be turning back into the city men
and boys "of combat age" who were trying to flee the
impending scene of battle -- an act which in itself is a
violation of the Geneva Conventions, which require
combatants to permit anyone, combatants as well as
civilians, to surrender, and to leave the scene of
battle.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United
States has been a signatory since 1949, children under
the age of 15 captured in conflicts, even if they have
been fighting, are to be considered victims, not
prisoners. In 2002, the United States signed the
Optional Protocol to the Geneva Convention on the Rights
of the Child on the Involvement of children in Armed
Conflict, which raised this age for this category of
"protected person" to under 18.
The continued detention of such children, some as young
as 10, by the US military is a violation of both
convention and protocol, and as such constitutes a war
crime for which the president, as commander in chief,
bears full responsibility.
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 XXI
MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT
THREATS FROM IRAN, AND SUPPORTING TERRORIST
ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN IRAN, WITH THE GOAL OF OVERTHROWING
THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT
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 to
take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has both
personally and acting through his agents and
subordinates misled the Congress and the citizens of the
United States about a threat of nuclear attack from the
nation of Iran.
The National Intelligence Estimate released to Congress
and the public on December 4, 2007, which confirmed that
the government of the nation of Iran had ceased any
efforts to develop nuclear weapons, was completed in
2006. Yet, the president and his aides continued to
suggest during 2007 that such a nuclear threat was
developing and might already exist. National Security
Adviser Stephen Hadley stated at the time the National
Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran was released that
the president had been briefed on its findings "in the
last few months." Hadley's statement establishes a
timeline that shows the president knowingly sought to
deceive Congress and the American people about a nuclear
threat that did not exist.
Hadley has stated that the president "was basically
told: stand down" and, yet, the president and his aides
continued to make false claims about the prospect that
Iran was trying to "build a nuclear weapon" that could
lead to "World War III."
This evidence establishes that the president actively
engaged in and had full knowledge of a campaign by his
administration to make a false "case" for an attack on
Iran, thus warping the national security debate at a
critical juncture and creating the prospect of an
illegal and unnecessary attack on a sovereign nation.
Even after the National Intelligence Estimate was
released to Congress and the American people, the
president stated that he did not believe anything had
changed and suggested that he and members of his
administration would continue to argue that Iran should
be seen as posing a threat to the United States. He did
this despite the fact that United States intelligence
agencies had clearly and officially stated that this was
not the case.
Evidence suggests that the Bush Administration's
attempts to portray Iran as a threat are part of a
broader U.S. policy toward Iran. On September 30, 2001,
then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld established an
official military objective of overturning the regime in
Iran, as well as those in Iraq, Syria, and four other
countries in the Middle East, according to a document
quoted in then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
Douglas Feith's book, "War and Decision."
General Wesley Clark reports in his book Winning Modern
Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November
2001 that the list of governments that Rumsfeld and
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz planned to
overthrow included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and
Somalia. Clark writes that the list also included
Lebanon.
Journalist Gareth Porter reported in May 2008 asking
Feith at a public event which of the six regimes on the
Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, to which
Feith replied, "All of them."
Rumsfeld's aides also drafted a second version of the
paper, as instructions to all military commanders in the
development of "campaign plans against terrorism.” The
paper called for military commanders to assist other
government agencies "as directed" to "encourage
populations dominated by terrorist organizations or
their supporters to overthrow that domination.”
In January 2005, Seymour Hersh reported in the New
Yorker Magazine that the Bush Administration had been
conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at
least since the summer of 2004.
In June 2005 former United Nations weapons inspector
Scott Ritter reported that United States security forces
had been sending members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK)
into Iranian territory. The MEK has been designated a
terrorist organization by the United States, the
European Union, Canada, Iraq, and Iran. Ritter reported
that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
had used the MEK to carry out remote bombings in Iran.
In April 2006, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine
that U.S. combat troops had entered and were operating
in Iran, where they were working with minority groups
including the Azeris, Baluchis, and Kurds.
Also in April 2006, Larisa Alexandrovna reported on Raw
Story that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) was
working with and training the MEK, or former members of
the MEK, sending them to commit acts of violence in
southern Iran in areas where recent attacks had left
many dead. Raw Story reported that the Pentagon had
adopted the policy of supporting MEK shortly after the
2003 invasion of Iraq, and in response to the influence
of Vice President Richard B. Cheney's office. Raw Story
subsequently reported that no Presidential finding, and
no Congressional oversight, existed on MEK operations.
In March 2007, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine
that the Bush administration was attempting to stem the
growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East
(specifically the Iranian government and Hezbollah in
Lebanon) by funding violent Sunni organizations, without
any Congressional authorization or oversight. Hersh said
funds had been given to "three Sunni jihadist groups ...
connected to al Qaeda" that "want to take on Hezbollah."
In April 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that
conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran's borders
were understood by the Iranian government as a proxy war
with the United States. Among the groups the U.S. DOD is
supporting, according to this report, is the Party for
Free Life in Kurdistan, known by its Kurdish acronym,
PEJAK. The United States has provided "foodstuffs,
economic assistance, medical supplies and Russian
military equipment, some of it funneled through
nonprofit groups."
In May 2008, Andrew Cockburn reported on Counter Punch
that President Bush, six weeks earlier had signed a
secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against
the Iranian regime. President Bush's secret directive
covers actions across an area stretching from Lebanon to
Afghanistan, and purports to sanction actions up to and
including the funding of organizations like the MEK and
the assassination of public officials.
All of these actions by the president and his agents and
subordinates exhibit a disregard for the truth and a
recklessness with regard to national security, nuclear
proliferation and the global role of the United States
military that is not merely unacceptable but dangerous
in a commander-in-chief.
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 XXII
CREATING SECRET LAWS
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,
established a body of secret laws through the issuance
of legal opinions by the Department of Justice's Office
of Legal Counsel (OLC).
The OLC's March 14, 2003, interrogation memorandum ("Yoo
Memorandum") was declassified years after it served as
law for the executive branch. On April 29, 2008, House
Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties Chairman Jerrold Nadler wrote in a letter to
Attorney General Michael Mukasey:
"It appears to us that there was never any legitimate
basis for the purely legal analysis contained in this
document to be classified in the first place. The Yoo
Memorandum does not describe sources and methods of
intelligence gathering, or any specific facts regarding
any interrogation activities. Instead, it consists
almost entirely of the Department's legal views, which
are not properly kept secret from Congress and the
American people. J. William Leonard, the Director of the
National Archive's Office of Information Security
Oversight Office, and a top expert in this field
concurs, commenting that '[t]he document in question is
purely a legal analysis' that contains 'nothing which
would justify classification.’ In addition, the Yoo
Memorandum suggests an extraordinary breadth and
aggressiveness of OLC's secret legal opinion-making.
Much attention has rightly been given to the statement
in footnote 10 in the March 14, 2003, memorandum that,
in an October 23, 2001, opinion, OLC concluded 'that the
Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military
operations.' As you know, we have requested a copy of
that memorandum on no less than four prior occasions and
we continue to demand access to this important document.
"In addition to this opinion, however, the Yoo
Memorandum references at least 10 other OLC opinions on
weighty matters of great interest to the American people
that also do not appear to have been released. These
appear to cover matters such as the power of Congress to
regulate the conduct of military commissions, legal
constraints on the 'military detention of United States
citizens,' legal rules applicable to the boarding and
searching foreign ships, the President's authority to
render U.S. detainees to the custody of foreign
governments, and the President's authority to breach or
suspend U.S. treaty obligations. Furthermore, it has
been more than five years since the Yoo Memorandum was
authored, raising the question how many other such
memoranda and letters have been secretly authored and
utilized by the Administration.
"Indeed, a recent court filing by the Department in FOIA
litigation involving the Central Intelligence Agency
identifies 8 additional secret OLC opinions, dating from
August 6, 2004, to February 18, 2007. Given that these
reflect only OLC memoranda identified in the files of
the CIA, and based on the sampling procedures under
which that listing was generated, it appears that these
represent only a small portion of the secret OLC
memoranda generated during this time, with the true
number almost certainly much higher."
Senator Russ Feingold, in a statement during an April
30, 2008, senate hearing stated:
"It is a basic tenet of democracy that the people have a
right to know the law. In keeping with this principle,
the laws passed by Congress and the case law of our
courts have historically been matters of public record.
And when it became apparent in the middle of the 20th
century that federal agencies were increasingly creating
a body of non-public administrative law, Congress passed
several statutes requiring this law to be made public,
for the express purpose of preventing a regime of
'secret law.’ "That purpose today is being thwarted.
Congressional enactments and agency regulations are for
the most part still public. But the law that applies in
this country is determined not only by statutes and
regulations, but also by the controlling interpretations
of courts and, in some cases, the executive branch. More
and more, this body of executive and judicial law is
being kept secret from the public, and too often from
Congress as well....
"A legal interpretation by the Justice Department's
Office of Legal Counsel ... binds the entire executive
branch, just like a regulation or the ruling of a court.
In the words of former OLC head Jack Goldsmith, “These
executive branch precedents are ‘law’ for the executive
branch.” The Yoo memorandum was, for a nine-month period
in 2003 until it was withdrawn by Mr. Goldsmith, the law
that this Administration followed when it came to
matters of torture. And of course, that law was
essentially a declaration that few if any laws applied .
. . .
"Another body of secret law is the controlling
interpretations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act that are issued by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court. FISA, of course, is the law that
governs the government's ability in intelligence
investigations to conduct wiretaps and search the homes
of people in the United States. Under that statute, the
FISA Court is directed to evaluate wiretap and search
warrant applications and decide whether the standard for
issuing a warrant has been met – a largely factual
evaluation that is properly done behind closed doors.
But with the evolution of technology and with this
Administration's efforts to get the Court's blessing for
its illegal wiretapping activities, we now know that the
Court's role is broader, and that it is very much
engaged in substantive interpretations of the governing
statute. These interpretations are as much a part of
this country's surveillance law as the statute itself.
Without access to them, it is impossible for Congress or
the public to have an informed debate on matters that
deeply affect the privacy and civil liberties of all
Americans...
"The Administration's shroud of secrecy extends to
agency rules and executive pronouncements, such as
Executive Orders, that carry the force of law. Through
the diligent efforts of my colleague Senator Whitehouse,
we have learned that OLC has taken the position that a
President can 'waive' or 'modify' a published Executive
Order without any notice to the public or Congress –
simply by not following it."
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXIII
VIOLATION OF THE POSSE COMITATUS ACT
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, repeatedly and illegally established
programs to appropriate the power of the military for
use in law enforcement. Specifically, he has
contravened U.S.C. Title 18. Section 1385, originally
enacted in 1878, subsequently amended as "Use of Army
and Air Force as Posse Comitatus" and commonly known as
the Posse Comitatus Act.
The Act states:
"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances
expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of
Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air
Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the
laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not
more than two years, or both."
The Posse Comitatus Act is designed to prevent the
military from becoming a national police force.
The Declaration of Independence states as a specific
grievance against the British that the King had "kept
among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the
consent of our legislatures," had "affected to render
the Military independent of and superior to the civil
power," and had "quarter[ed] large bodies of armed
troops among us . . . protecting them, by a mock trial,
from punishment for any murders which they should commit
on the inhabitants of these States"
Despite the Posse Comitatus Act's intent, and in
contravention of the law, President Bush
a) has used military forces for law enforcement purposes
on U.S. border patrol;
b) has established a program to use military personnel
for surveillance and information on criminal activities;
c) is using military espionage equipment to collect
intelligence information for law enforcement use on
civilians within the United States; and
d) employs active duty military personnel in
surveillance agencies, including the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In June 2006, President Bush ordered National Guard
troops deployed to the border shared by Mexico with
Arizona, Texas, and California. This deployment, which
by 2007 reached a maximum of 6,000 troops, had orders to
"conduct surveillance and operate detection equipment,
work with border entry identification teams, analyze
information, assist with communications and give
administrative support to the Border Patrol" and
concerned "…providing intelligence….inspecting cargo,
and conducting surveillance."
The Air Force's "Eagle Eyes" program encourages Air
Force military staff to gather evidence on American
citizens. Eagle Eyes instructs Air Force personnel to
engage in surveillance and then advises them to "alert
local authorities," asking military staff to surveil and
gather evidence on public citizens. This contravenes DoD
Directive 5525.5 "SUBJECT: DOD Cooperation with Civilian
Law Enforcement" which limits such activities.
President Bush has implemented a program to use imagery
from military satellites for domestic law enforcement
through the National Applications Office.
President Bush has assigned numerous active duty
military personnel to civilian institutions such as the
CIA and the Department of Homeland Security, both of
which have responsibilities for law enforcement and
intelligence.
In addition, on May 9, 2007, President Bush released
"National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51,"
which effectively gives the president unchecked power to
control the entire government and to define that
government in time of an emergency, as well as the power
to determine whether there is an emergency. The document
also contains "classified Continuity Annexes.” In July
2007 and again in August 2007 Rep. Peter DeFazio, a
senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee,
sought access to the classified annexes. DeFazio and
other leaders of the Homeland Security Committee,
including Chairman Bennie Thompson, have been denied a
review of the Continuity of Government classified
annexes.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXIV
SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS, WITHOUT A COURT-ORDERED
WARRANT, IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW AND THE FOURTH
AMENDMENT
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, knowingly violated the fourth Amendment to
the Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Service
Act of 1978 (FISA) by authorizing warrantless electronic
surveillance of American citizens to wit:
(1) The President was aware of the FISA Law requiring a
court order for any wiretap as evidenced by the
following:
(A)"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States
government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a
wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by
the way. When we're talking about chasing down
terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order
before we do so." White House Press conference on April
20, 2004 [White House Transcript]
(B) "Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's
permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, or to
track his calls, or to search his property. Officers
must meet strict standards to use any of the tools we're
talking about." President Bush's speech in Baltimore
Maryland on July 20th 2005 [White House Transcript].
(2) The President repeatedly ordered the NSA to place
wiretaps on American citizens without requesting a
warrant from FISA as evidenced by the following:
(A) "Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush
secretly authorized the National Security Agency to
eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United
States to search for evidence of terrorist activity
without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required
for domestic spying, according to government officials."
New York Times article by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau
on December 12, 2005. [NYTimes].
(B) The President admits to authorizing the program by
stating "I have reauthorized this program more than 30
times since the September the 11th attacks, and I intend
to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing
threat from al Qaeda and related groups. The NSA's
activities under this authorization are thoroughly
reviewed by the Justice Department and NSA's top legal
officials, including NSA's general counsel and inspector
general. Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than
a dozen times on this authorization and the activities
conducted under it." Radio Address from the White House
on December 17, 2005 [White House Transcript]
(C) In a December 19th 2005 press conference the
President publicly admitted to using a combination of
surveillance techniques including some with permission
from the FISA courts and some without permission from
FISA.
Reporter: It was, why did you skip the basic safeguards
of asking courts for permission for the intercepts?
THE PRESIDENT: ... We use FISA still -- you're referring
to the FISA court in your question -- of course, we use
FISAs. But FISA is for long-term monitoring. What is
needed in order to protect the American people is the
ability to move quickly to detect. Now, having suggested
this idea, I then, obviously, went to the question, is
it legal to do so? I am -- I swore to uphold the laws.
Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer
is, absolutely. As I mentioned in my remarks, the legal
authority is derived from the Constitution, as well as
the authorization of force by the United States
Congress." [White House Transcript]
(D) Mike McConnell, the Director of National
Intelligence, in a letter to Senator Arlen Specter,
acknowledged that Bush's Executive Order in 2001
authorized a series of secret surveillance activities
and included undisclosed activities beyond the
warrantless surveillance of e-mails and phone calls that
Bush confirmed in December 2005. "NSA Spying Part of
Broader Effort" by Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 8/1/07
(3) The President ordered the surveillance to be
conducted in a way that would spy upon private
communications between American citizens located within
the United States borders as evidenced by the following:
(A) Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications
technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation's FF's lawsuit against
AT&T. He testified that in 2003 he connected a
"splitter" that sent a copy of Internet traffic and
phone calls to a secure room that was operated by the
NSA in the San Francisco office of AT&T. He heard from a
co-worker that similar rooms were being constructed in
other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles
and San Diego. From "Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room,”
Wired News, 4/7/06 [Wired] [EFF Case]
(4) The President asserted an inherent authority to
conduct electronic surveillance based on the
Constitution and the "Authorization to use Military
Force in Iraq" (AUMF) that was not legally valid as
evidenced by the following:
(A) In a December 19th, 2005 Press Briefing General
Alberto Gonzales admitted that the surveillance
authorized by the President was not only done without
FISA warrants, but that the nature of the surveillance
was so far removed from what FISA can approve that FISA
could not even be amended to allow it. Gonzales stated
"We have had discussions with Congress in the past --
certain members of Congress -- as to whether or not FISA
could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with
this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would
be difficult, if not impossible.”
(B) The fourth amendment to the United States
Constitution states "The right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and
the persons or things to be seized."
(C) "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978
unambiguously limits warrantless domestic electronic
surveillance, even in a congressionally declared war, to
the first 15 days of that war; criminalizes any such
electronic surveillance not authorized by statute; and
expressly establishes FISA and two chapters of the
federal criminal code, governing wiretaps for
intelligence purposes and for criminal investigation,
respectively, as the "exclusive means by which
electronic surveillance . . . and the interception of
domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may
be conducted." 50 U.S.C. §§ 1811, 1809, 18 U.S.C. §
2511(2)(f). Letter from Harvard Law Professor Lawrence
Tribe to John Conyers on 1/6/06
(D) In a December 19th, 2005 Press Briefing Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales stated "Our position is, is
that the authorization to use force, which was passed by
the Congress in the days following September 11th,
constitutes that other authorization, that other statute
by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals
intelligence."
(E) The "Authorization to use Military Force in Iraq"
does not give any explicit authorization related to
electronic surveillance. [HJRes114]
(F) "From the foregoing analysis, it appears unlikely
that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or
impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance
operations here under discussion, and it would likewise
appear that, to the extent that those surveillances fall
within the definition of "electronic surveillance"
within the meaning of FISA or any activity regulated
under Title III, Congress intended to cover the entire
field with these statutes." From the "Presidential
Authority to Conduct Warrantless Electronic Surveillance
to Gather Foreign Intelligence Information" by the
Congressional Research Service on January 5, 2006.
(G) "The inescapable conclusion is that the AUMF did not
implicitly authorize what the FISA expressly prohibited.
It follows that the presidential program of surveillance
at issue here is a violation of the separation of powers
— as grave an abuse of executive authority as I can
recall ever having studied." Letter from Harvard Law
Professor Lawrence Tribe to John Conyers on 1/6/06
(H) On August 17, 2006 Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the
United States District Court in Detroit, in ACLU v. NSA,
ruled that the "NSA program to wiretap the international
communications of some Americans without a court warrant
violated the Constitution. ... Judge Taylor ruled that
the program violated both the Fourth Amendment and a
1978 law that requires warrants from a secret court for
intelligence wiretaps involving people in the United
States. She rejected the administration's repeated
assertions that a 2001 Congressional authorization and
the president's constitutional authority allowed the
program." From a New York Times article "Judge Finds
Wiretap Actions Violate the Law" 8/18/06 and the
Memorandum Opinion
(I) In July 2007, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
dismissed the case, ruling the plaintiffs had no
standing to sue because, given the secretive nature of
the surveillance, they could not state with certainty
that they have been wiretapped by the NSA. This ruling
did not address the legality of the surveillance so
Judge Taylor's decision is the only ruling on that
issue. [ACLU Legal Documents]
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXV
DIRECTING TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES TO CREATE AN
ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL DATABASE OF THE PRIVATE
TELEPHONE NUMBERS AND EMAILS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS
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, violated the Stored Communications Act of
1986 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 by creating
of a very large database containing information related
to the private telephone calls and emails of American
citizens, to wit:
The President requested that telecommunication companies
release customer phone records to the government
illegally as evidenced by the following:
"The Stored Communications Act of 1986 (SCA) prohibits
the knowing disclosure of customer telephone records to
the government unless pursuant to subpoena, warrant or a
National Security Letter (or other Administrative
subpoena); with the customers lawful consent; or there
is a business necessity; or an emergency involving the
danger of death or serious physical injury. None of
these exceptions apply to the circumstance described in
the USA Today story." From page 169, "George W. Bush
versus the US Constitution" Compiled at the direction of
Representative John Conyers.
According to a May 11, 2006 article in USA Today by
Lesley Cauley, "The National Security Agency has been
secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of
millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T,
Verizon and BellSouth." An unidentified source said,
"The agency's goal is 'to create a database of every
call ever made' within the nation's borders."
In early 2001, Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio rejected a
request from the NSA to turn over customers records of
phone calls, emails and other Internet activity. Nacchio
believed that complying with the request would violate
the Telecommunications Act of 1996. From National
Journal, November 2, 2007.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXVI
ANNOUNCING THE INTENT TO VIOLATE LAWS WITH SIGNING
STATEMENTS, AND VIOLATING THOSE LAWS
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 used
signing statements to claim the right to violate acts of
Congress even as he signs them into law.
In June 2007, the Government Accountability Office
reported that in a sample of Bush signing statements the
office had studied, for 30 percent of them the Bush
administration had already proceeded to violate the laws
the statements claimed the right to violate.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXVII
FAILING TO COMPLY WITH CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENAS AND
INSTRUCTING FORMER EMPLOYEES NOT TO COMPLY
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, refused to comply with Congressional
subpoenas, and instructed former employees not to comply
with subpoenas.
Subpoenas not complied with include:
1. A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for Justice
Department papers and Emails, issued April 10, 2007;
2. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
subpoena for the testimony of the Secretary of State,
issued April 25, 2007;
3. A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for the
testimony of former White House Counsel Harriet Miers
and documents , issued June 13, 2007;
4. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for
documents and testimony of White House Chief of Staff
Joshua Bolten, issued June 13, 2007;
5. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for
documents and testimony of White House Political
Director Sara Taylor, issued June 13, 2007 (Taylor
appeared but refused to answer questions);
6. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for
documents and testimony of White House Deputy Chief of
Staff Karl Rove, issued June 26, 2007;
7. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for
documents and testimony of White House Deputy Political
Director J. Scott Jennings, issued June 26, 2007
(Jennings appeared but refused to answer questions);
8. A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for legal
analysis and other documents concerning the NSA
warrantless wiretapping program from the White House,
Vice President Richard Cheney, The Department of
Justice, and the National Security Council. If the
documents are not produced, the subpoena requires the
testimony of White House chief of staff Josh Bolten,
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Cheney chief of staff
David Addington, National Security Council executive
director V. Philip Lago, issued June 27, 2007;
9. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
subpoena for Lt. General Kensinger.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXVIII
TAMPERING WITH FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS, CORRUPTION OF
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE,
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, conspired to undermine and tamper with the
conduct of free and fair elections, and to corrupt the
administration of justice by United States Attorneys and
other employees of the Department of Justice, through
abuse of the appointment power.
Toward this end, the President and Vice President, both
personally and through their agents, did:
Engage in a program of manufacturing false allegations
of voting fraud in targeted jurisdictions where the
Democratic Party enjoyed an advantage in electoral
performance or otherwise was problematic for the
President's Republican Party, in order that public
confidence in election results favorable to the
Democratic Party be undermined;
Direct United States Attorneys to launch and announce
investigations of certain leaders, candidates and
elected officials affiliated with the Democratic Party
at times calculated to cause the most political damage
and confusion, most often in the weeks immediately
preceding an election, in order that public confidence
in the suitability for office of Democratic Party
leaders, candidates and elected officials be undermined;
Direct United States Attorneys to terminate or scale
back existing investigations of certain Republican Party
leaders, candidates and elected officials allied with
the George W. Bush administration, and to refuse to
pursue new or proposed investigations of certain
Republican Party leaders, candidates and elected
officials allied with the George W. Bush administration,
in order that public confidence in the suitability of
such Republican Party leaders, candidates and elected
officials be bolstered or restored;
Threaten to terminate the employment of the following
United States Attorneys who refused to comply with such
directives and purposes;
1. David C. Iglesias as U.S. Attorney for the
District of New Mexico;
2. Kevin V. Ryan as U.S. Attorney for the Northern
District of California;
3. John L. McKay as U.S. Attorney for the Western
District of Washington;
4. Paul K. Charlton as U.S. Attorney for the District
of Arizona;
5. Carol C. Lam as U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of California;
6. Daniel G. Bogden as U.S. Attorney for the District
of Nevada;
7. Margaret M. Chiara as U.S. Attorney for the
Western District of Michigan;
8. Todd Graves as U.S. Attorney for the Western
District of Missouri;
9. Harry E. "Bud" Cummins, III as U.S. Attorney for
the Eastern District of Arkansas;
10. Thomas M. DiBiagio as U.S. Attorney for the
District of Maryland, and;
11. Kasey Warner as U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of West Virginia.
Further, George W. Bush has both personally and acting
through his agents and subordinates, together with the
Vice President conspired to obstruct the lawful
Congressional investigation of these dismissals of
United States Attorneys and the related scheme to
undermine and tamper with the conduct of free and fair
elections, and to corrupt the administration of justice.
Contrary to his oath faithfully to 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 to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed, George W. Bush has without lawful
cause or excuse directed not to appear before the
Committee on the Judiciary of the House of
Representatives certain witnesses summoned by duly
authorized subpoenas issued by that Committee on June
13, 2007.
In refusing to permit the testimony of these witnesses
George W. Bush, substituting his judgment as to what
testimony was necessary for the inquiry, interposed the
powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of
the House of Representatives, thereby assuming to
himself functions and judgments necessary to the
exercise of the checking and balancing power of
oversight vested in the House of Representatives.
Further, the President has both personally and acting
through his agents and subordinates, together with the
Vice President directed the United States Attorney for
the District of Columbia to decline to prosecute for
contempt of Congress the aforementioned witnesses,
Joshua B. Bolten and Harriet E. Miers, despite the
obligation to do so as established by statute (2 USC §
194) and pursuant to the direction of the United States
House of Representatives as embodied in its resolution
(H. Res. 982) of February 14, 2008.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXIX
CONSPIRACY TO VIOLATE THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965
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, willfully corrupted and manipulated the
electoral process of the United States for his personal
gain and the personal gain of his co-conspirators and
allies; violated the United States Constitution and law
by failing to protect the civil rights of
African-American voters and others in the 2004 Election,
and impeded the right of the people to vote and have
their vote properly and accurately counted, in that:
A. On November 5, 2002, and prior thereto, James Tobin,
while serving as the regional director of the National
Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and as the New
England Chairman of Bush-Cheney '04 Inc., did, at the
direction of the White House under the administration of
George W. Bush, along with other agents both known and
unknown, commit unlawful acts by aiding and abetting a
scheme to use computerized hang-up calls to jam phone
lines set up by the New Hampshire Democratic Party and
the Manchester firefighters' union on Election Day;
B. An investigation by the Democratic staff of the House
Judiciary Committee into the voting procedures in Ohio
during the 2004 election found "widespread instances of
intimidation and misinformation in violation of the
Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal
Protection, Due Process and the Ohio right to vote;"
C. The 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause guarantees
that no minority group will suffer disparate treatment
in a federal, state, or local election in stating that:
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.” However, during and at various
times of the year 2004, John Kenneth Blackwell, then
serving as the Secretary of State for the State of Ohio
and also serving simultaneously as Co-Chairman of the
Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush in the State of
Ohio, did, at the direction of the White House under the
administration of George W. Bush, along with other
agents both known and unknown, commit unlawful acts in
violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th
Amendment to the United States Constitution by failing
to protect the voting rights of African-American
citizens in Ohio and further, John Kenneth Blackwell did
disenfranchise African-American voters under color of
law, by
D. Willfully denying certain neighborhoods in the cities
of Cleveland, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio, along with other
urban areas in the State of Ohio, an adequate number of
electronic voting machines and provisional paper
ballots, thereby unlawfully impeding duly registered
voters from the act of voting and thus violating the
civil rights of an unknown number of United States
citizens.
E. In Franklin County, George W. Bush and his agent,
Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell, Co-Chair
of the Bush-Cheney Re-election Campaign, failed to
protect the rights of African-American voters by not
properly investigating the withholding of 125 electronic
voting machines assigned to the city of Columbus.
F. Forty-two African-American precincts in Columbus were
each missing one voting machine that had been present in
the 2004 primary.
G. African-American voters in the city of Columbus were
forced to wait three to seven hours to vote in the 2004
presidential election.
H. Willfully issuing unclear and conflicting rules
regarding the methods and manner of becoming a legally
registered voter in the State of Ohio, and willfully
issuing unclear and unnecessary edicts regarding the
weight of paper registration forms legally acceptable to
the State of Ohio, thereby creating confusion for both
voters and voting officials and thus impeding the right
of an unknown number of United States citizens to
register and vote.
I. Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth Blackwell
directed through Advisory 2004-31 that voter
registration forms, which were greatest in urban
minority areas, should not be accepted and should be
returned unless submitted on 80 bond paper weight.
Blackwell's own office was found to be using 60 bond
paper weight.
J. Willfully permitted and encouraged election officials
in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo to conduct a massive
partisan purge of registered voter rolls, eventually
expunging more than 300,000 voters, many of whom were
duly registered voters, and who were thus deprived of
their constitutional right to vote;
K. Between the 2000 and 2004 Ohio presidential
elections, 24.93% of the voters in the city of
Cleveland, a city with a majority of African American
citizens, were purged from the voting rolls.
L. In that same period, the Ohio county of Miami, with
census data indicating a 98% Caucasian population,
refused to purge any voters from its rolls. Miami County
"merged" voters from other surrounding counties into its
voting rolls and even allowed voters from other states
to vote.
M. In Toledo, Ohio, an urban city with a high
African-American concentration, 28,000 voters were
purged from the voting rolls in August of 2004, just
prior to the presidential election. This purge was
conducted under the control and direction of George W.
Bush's agent, Ohio Secretary of State John Kenneth
Blackwell outside of the regularly established cycle of
purging voters in odd-numbered years.
N. Willfully allowing Ohio Secretary of State John
Kenneth Blackwell, acting under color of law and as an
agent of George W. Bush, to issue a directive that no
votes would be counted unless cast in the right
precinct, reversing Ohio's long-standing practice of
counting votes for president if cast in the right
county.
O. Willfully allowing his agent, Ohio Secretary of State
John Kenneth Blackwell, the Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney
Re-election Campaign, to do nothing to assure the voting
rights of 10,000 people in the city of Cleveland when a
computer error by the private vendor Diebold Election
Systems, Inc. incorrectly disenfranchised 10,000 voters
P. Willfully allowing his agent, Ohio Secretary of State
John Kenneth Blackwell, the Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney
Re-election Campaign, to ensure that uncounted and
provisional ballots in Ohio's 2004 presidential election
would be disproportionately concentrated in urban
African-American districts.
Q. In Ohio's Lucas County, which includes Toledo, 3,122
or 41.13% of the provisional ballots went uncounted
under the direction of George W. Bush's agent, the
Secretary of State of Ohio, John Kenneth Blackwell,
Co-Chair of the Committee to Re-Elect Bush/Cheney in
Ohio.
R. In Ohio's Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland,
8,559 or 32.82% of the provisional ballots went
uncounted.
S. In Ohio's Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati,
3,529 or 24.23% of the provisional ballots went
uncounted.
T. Statewide, the provisional ballot rejection rate was
9% as compared to the greater figures in the urban
areas.
U. The Department of Justice, charged with enforcing the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 14th Amendment's Equal
Protection Clause, and other voting rights laws in the
United States of America, under the direction and
Administration of George W. Bush did willfully and
purposely obstruct and stonewall legitimate criminal
investigations into myriad cases of reported electoral
fraud and suppression in the state of Ohio. Such
activities, carried out by the department on behalf of
George W. Bush in counties such as Franklin and Knox by
persons such as John K. Tanner and others, were meant to
confound and whitewash legitimate legal criminal
investigations into the suppression of massive numbers
of legally registered voters and the removal of their
right to cast a ballot fairly and freely in the state of
Ohio, which was crucial to the certified electoral
victory of George W. Bush in 2004.
V. On or about November 1, 2006, members of the United
States Department of Justice, under the control and
direction of the Administration of George W. Bush,
brought indictments for voter registration fraud within
days of an election, in order to directly effect the
outcome of that election for partisan purposes, and in
doing so, thereby violated the Justice Department's own
rules against filing election-related indictments close
to an election;
X. Emails have been obtained showing that the Republican
National Committee and members of Bush-Cheney '04 Inc.,
did, at the direction of the White House under the
administration of George W. Bush, engage in voter
suppression in five states by a method know as "vote
caging," an illegal voter suppression technique;
Y. Agents of George W. Bush, including Mark F. "Thor"
Hearne, the national general counsel of Bush/Cheney '04,
Inc., did, at the behest of George W. Bush, as members
of a criminal front group, distribute known false
information and propaganda in the hopes of forwarding
legislation and other actions that would result in the
disenfranchisement of Democratic voters for partisan
purposes. The scheme, run under the auspices of an
organization known as "The American Center for Voting
Rights" (ACVR), was funded by agents of George W. Bush
in violation of laws governing tax exempt 501(c)3
organizations and in violation of federal laws
forbidding the distribution of such propaganda by the
federal government and agents working on its behalf.
Z. Members of the United States Department of Justice,
under the control and direction of the Administration of
George W. Bush, did, for partisan reasons, illegally and
with malice aforethought block career attorneys and
other officials in the Department of Justice from filing
three lawsuits charging local and county governments
with violating the voting rights of African-Americans
and other minorities, according to seven former senior
United States Justice Department employees.
AA. Members of the United States Department of Justice,
under the control and direction of the Administration of
George W. Bush, did illegally and with malice
aforethought derail at least two investigations into
possible voter discrimination, according to a letter
sent to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee
and written by former employees of the United States
Department of Justice, Voting Rights Section.
BB. Members of the United States Election Assistance
Commission (EAC), under the control and direction of the
Administration of George W. Bush, have purposefully and
willfully misled the public, in violation of several
laws, by;
CC. Withholding from the public and then altering a
legally mandated report on the true measure and threat
of Voter Fraud, as commissioned by the EAC and completed
in June 2006, prior to the 2006 mid-term election, but
withheld from release prior to that election when its
information would have been useful in the administration
of elections across the country, because the results of
the statutorily required and tax-payer funded report did
not conform with the illegal, partisan propaganda
efforts and politicized agenda of the Bush
Administration;
DD. Withholding from the public a legally mandated
report on the disenfranchising effect of Photo
Identification laws at the polling place, shown to
disproportionately disenfranchise voters not of George
W. Bush's political party. The report was commissioned
by the EAC and completed in June 2006, prior to the 2006
mid-term election, but withheld from release prior to
that election when its information would have been
useful in the administration of elections across the
country
EE. Withholding from the public a legally mandated
report on the effectiveness of Provisional Voting as
commissioned by the EAC and completed in June 2006,
prior to the 2006 mid-term election, but withheld from
release prior to that election when its information
would have been useful in the administration of
elections across the country, and keeping that report
unreleased for more than a year until it was revealed by
independent media outlets.
For directly harming the rights and manner of suffrage,
for suffering to make them secret and unknowable, for
overseeing and participating in the disenfranchisement
of legal voters, for instituting debates and doubts
about the true nature of elections, all against the will
and consent of local voters affected, and forced through
threats of litigation by agents and agencies overseen by
George W. Bush, the actions of Mr. Bush to do the
opposite of securing and guaranteeing the right of the
people to alter or abolish their government via the
electoral process, being a violation of an inalienable
right, and an immediate threat to Liberty.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXX
MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN AN
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY MEDICARE
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, pursued
policies which deliberately drained the fiscal resources
of Medicare by forcing it to compete with subsidized
private insurance plans which are allowed to arbitrarily
select or not select those they will cover; failing to
provide reasonable levels of reimbursements to Medicare
providers, thereby discouraging providers from
participating in the program, and designing a Medicare
Part D benefit without cost controls which allowed
pharmaceutical companies to gouge the American taxpayers
for the price of prescription drugs.
The President created, manipulated, and disseminated
information given to the citizens and Congress of the
United States in support of his prescription drug plan
for Medicare that enriched drug companies while failing
to save beneficiaries sufficient money on their
prescription drugs. He misled Congress and the American
people into thinking the cost of the benefit was $400
billion. It was widely understood that if the cost
exceeded that amount, the bill would not pass due to
concerns about fiscal irresponsibility.
A Medicare Actuary who possessed information regarding
the true cost of the plan, $539 billion, was instructed
by the Medicare Administrator to deny Congressional
requests for it. The Actuary was threatened with
sanctions if the information was disclosed to Congress,
which, unaware of the information, approved the bill.
Despite the fact that official cost estimates far
exceeded $400 billion, President Bush offered assurances
to Congress that the cost was $400 billion, when his
office had information to the contrary. In the House of
Representatives, the bill passed by a single vote and
the Conference Report passed by only five votes. The
White House knew the actual cost of the drug benefit was
high enough to prevent its passage. Yet the White House
concealed the truth and impeded an investigation into
its culpability.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXXI
KATRINA: FAILURE TO PLAN FOR THE PREDICTED DISASTER OF
HURRICANE KATRINA, FAILURE TO RESPOND TO A CIVIL
EMERGENCY
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, failed to take sufficient action to
protect life and property prior to and in the face of
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, given decades of
foreknowledge of the dangers of storms to New Orleans
and specific forewarning in the days prior to the
storm. The President failed to prepare for predictable
and predicted disasters, failed to respond to an
immediate need of which he was informed, and has
subsequently failed to rebuild the section of our nation
that was destroyed.
Hurricane Katrina killed at least 1,282 people, with 2
million more displaced. 302,000 housing units were
destroyed or damaged by the hurricane, 71% of these were
low-income units. More than 500 sewage plants were
destroyed, more than 170 point-source leakages of
gasoline, oil, or natural gas, more than 2000 gas
stations submerged, several chemical plants, 8 oil
refineries, and a superfund site was submerged. 8
million gallons of oil were spilled. Toxic materials
seeped into floodwaters and spread through much of the
city and surrounding areas.
The predictable increased strength of hurricanes such as
Katrina has been identified by scientists for years, and
yet the Bush Administration has denied this science and
restricted such information from official reports,
publications, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Agency's website. Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of
Science, wrote in 2006 that "hurricane intensity has
increased with oceanic surface temperatures over the
past 30 years. The physics of hurricane intensity growth
… has clarified and explained the thermodynamic basis
for these observations. [Kerry] Emanuel has tested this
relationship and presented convincing evidence."
FEMA's 2001 list of the top three most likely and most
devastating disasters were a San Francisco earthquake, a
terrorist attack on New York, and a Category 4 hurricane
hitting New Orleans, with New Orleans being the number
one item on that list. FEMA conducted a five-day
hurricane simulation exercise in 2004, "Hurricane Pam,"
mimicking a Katrina-like event. This exercise combined
the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, the LSU Hurricane Center and other state and
federal agencies, resulting in the development of
emergency response plans. The exercise demonstrated,
among other things, that thousands of mainly indigent
New Orleans residents would be unable to evacuate on
their own. They would need substantial government
assistance. These plans, however, were not implemented
in part due to the President's slashing of funds for
protection. In the year before Hurricane Katrina hit,
the President continued to cut budgets and deny grants
to the Gulf Coast. In June of 2004 the Army Corps of
Engineers levee budget for New Orleans was cut, and it
was cut again in June of 2005, this time by $71.2
million or a whopping 44% of the budget. As a result,
ACE was forced to suspend any repair work on the levees.
In 2004 FEMA denied a Louisiana disaster mitigation
grant request.
The President was given multiple warnings that Hurricane
Katrina had a high likelihood of causing serious damage
to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. At 10 AM on Sunday 28
August 2005, the day before the storm hit, the National
Weather Service published an alert titled "DEVASTATING
DAMAGE EXPECTED.” Printed in all capital letters, the
alert stated that "MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE
UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE
HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. … POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS. … WATER
SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN
STANDARDS."
The Homeland Security Department also briefed the
President on the scenario, warning of levee breaches and
severe flooding. According to the New York Times, "a
Homeland Security Department report submitted to the
White House at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the
storm hit, said, 'Any storm rated Category 4 or greater
will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee
breaching.'" These warnings clearly contradict the
statements made by President Bush immediately after the
storm that such devastation could not have been
predicted. On 1 September 2005 the President said "I
don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the
levees."
The President's response to Katrina via FEMA and DHS was
criminally delayed, indifferent, and inept. The only
FEMA employee posted in New Orleans in the immediate
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Marty Bahamonde, emailed
head of FEMA Michael Brown from his Blackberry device on
August 31, 2005 regarding the conditions The email was
urgent and detailed and indicated that "The situation is
past critical…Estimates are many will die within hours.”
Brown's reply was emblematic of the administration's
entire response to the catastrophe: "Thanks for the
update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" The
Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, did
not declare an emergency, did not mobilize the federal
resources, and seemed to not even know what was
happening on the ground until reporters told him.
On Friday August 26, 2005, Governor Kathleen Blanco
declared a State of Emergency in Louisiana and Governor
Haley Barbour of Mississippi followed suit the next day.
Also on that Saturday, Governor Blanco asked the
President to declare a Federal State of Emergency, and
on 28 August 2005, the Sunday before the storm hit,
Mayor Nagin declared a State of Emergency in New
Orleans. This shows that the local authorities,
responding to federal warnings, knew how bad the
destruction was going to be and anticipated being
overwhelmed. Failure to act under these circumstances
demonstrates gross negligence.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXXII
MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE,
SYTEMATICALLY UNDERMINING EFFORTS TO ADDRESS GLOBAL
CLIMATE CHANGE.
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, ignored
the peril to life and property posed by global climate
change, manipulated scientific information and
mishandled protective policy, constituting nonfeasance
and malfeasance in office, abuse of power, dereliction
of duty, and deception of Congress and the American
people.
President Bush knew the expected effects of climate
change and the role of human activities in driving
climate change. This knowledge preceded his first
Presidential term.
1. During his 2000 Presidential campaign, he promised to
regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
2. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, a global body of hundreds of the world's
foremost experts on climate change, concluded that "most
of observed warming over last 50 years (is) likely due
to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations due to
human activities." The Third Assessment Report projected
several effects of climate change such as continued
"widespread retreat" of glaciers, an "increase threats
to human health, particularly in lower income
populations, predominantly within tropical/subtropical
countries," and "water shortages."
3. The grave danger to national security posed by global
climate change was recognized by the Pentagon's Defense
Advanced Planning Research Projects Agency in October of
2003. An agency-commissioned report "explores how such
an abrupt climate change scenario could potentially
de-stabilize the geo-political environment, leading to
skirmishes, battles, and even war due to resource
constraints such as: 1) Food shortages due to decreases
in net global agricultural production 2) Decreased
availability and quality of fresh water in key regions
due to shifted precipitation patters, causing more
frequent floods and droughts 3) Disrupted access to
energy supplies due to extensive sea ice and
storminess."
4. A December 2004 paper in Science reviewed 928 studies
published in peer reviewed journals to determine the
number providing evidence against the existence of a
link between anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide
and climate change. "Remarkably, none of the papers
disagreed with the consensus position."
5. The November 2007 Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report showed that
global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses have
increased 70% between 1970 and 2004, and anthropogenic
emissions are very likely the cause of global climate
change. The report concluded that global climate change
could cause the extinction of 20 to 30 percent of
species in unique ecosystems such as the polar areas and
biodiversity hotspots, increase extreme weather events
especially in the developing world, and have adverse
effects on food production and fresh water availability.
The President has done little to address this most
serious of problems, thus constituting an abuse of power
and criminal neglect. He has also actively endeavored to
undermine efforts by the federal government, states, and
other nations to take action on their own.
1. In March 2001, President Bush announced the U.S.
would not be pursuing ratification of the Kyoto
Protocol, an international effort to reduce greenhouse
gasses. The United States is the only industrialized
nation that has failed to ratify the accord.
2. In March0f 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote to
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson: "In August 2003, the
Bush Administration denied a petition to regulate CO2
emissions from motor vehicles by deciding that CO2 was
not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. In April 2007,
the U.S. Supreme Court overruled that determination in
Massachusetts v. EPA. The Supreme Court wrote that "If
EPA makes a finding of endangerment, the Clean Air Act
requires the agency to regulate emissions of the
deleterious pollutant from new motor vehicles." The EPA
then conducted an extensive investigation involving
60-70 staff who concluded that “CO2 emissions endanger
both human health and welfare.” These findings were
submitted to the White House, after which work on the
findings and the required regulations was halted."
3. A Memo to Members of the Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform on May 19, 2008 stated "The record
before the Committee shows: (1) the career staff at EPA
unanimously supported granting California's petition (to
be allowed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from
cars and trucks, consistent with California state law);
(2) Stephen Johnson, the Administrator of EPA, also
supported granting California's petition at least in
part; and (3) Administrator Johnson reversed his
position after communications with officials in the
White House."
The President has suppressed the release of scientific
information related to global climate change, an action
which undermines Congress' ability to legislate and
provide oversight, and which has thwarted efforts to
prevent global climate change despite the serious threat
that it poses.
1. In February, 2001, ExxonMobil wrote a memo to the
White House outlining ways to influence the outcome of
the Third Assessment report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. The memo opposed the reelection
of Dr. Robert Watson as the IPCC Chair. The White House
then supported an opposition candidate, who was
subsequently elected to replace Dr. Watson.
2. The New York Times on January 29, 2006, reported that
James Hansen, NASA's senior climate scientist was warned
of "dire consequences" if he continued to speak out
about global climate change and the need for reducing
emissions of associated gasses. The Times also reported
that: "At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many
scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five
years ago can now do so only if the interview is
approved by administration officials in Washington, and
then only if a public affairs officer is present or on
the phone."
3. In December of 2007, the House Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform issued a report based on 16 months
of investigation and 27,000 pages of documentation.
According to the summary: "The evidence before the
Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion: the Bush
Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to
manipulate climate change science and mislead policy
makers and the public about the dangers of global
warming." The report described how the White House
appointed former petroleum industry lobbyist Phil Cooney
as head of the Council on Environmental Quality. The
report states "There was a systematic White House effort
to minimize the significance of climate change by
editing climate change reports. CEQ Chief of Staff Phil
Cooney and other CEQ officials made at least 294 edits
to the Administration's Strategic Plan of the Climate
Change Science Program to exaggerate or emphasize
scientific uncertainties or to de-emphasize or diminish
the importance of the human role in global warming."
4. On April 23, 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote
a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L Johnson. In it
he reported: "Almost 1,600 EPA scientists completed the
Union of Concerned Scientists survey questionnaire. Over
22 percent of these scientists reported that 'selective
or incomplete use of data to justify a specific
regulatory outcome' occurred 'frequently' or
'occasionally' at EPA. Ninety-four EPA scientists
reported being frequently or occasionally directed to
inappropriately exclude or alter technical information
from an EPA scientific document. Nearly 200 EPA
scientists said that they have frequently or
occasionally been in situations in which scientists have
actively objected to, resigned from or removed
themselves from a project because of pressure to change
scientific findings."
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President 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 XXXIII
REPEATEDLY IGNORED AND FAILED TO RESPOND TO HIGH LEVEL
INTELLIGENCE WARNINGS OF PLANNED TERRORIST ATTACKS IN
THE US, PRIOR TO 911
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, failed
in his Constitutional duties to take proper steps to
protect the nation prior to September 11, 2001.
The White House's top counter-terrorism adviser, Richard
A. Clarke, has testified that from the beginning of
George W. Bush's presidency until September 11, 2001,
Clarke attempted unsuccessfully to persuade President
Bush to take steps to protect the nation against
terrorism. Clarke sent a memorandum to then-National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on January 24, 2001,
"urgently" but unsuccessfully requesting "a
Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al
Qaeda attack."
In April 2001, Clarke was finally granted a meeting, but
only with second-in-command department representatives,
including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,
who made light of Clarke's concerns.
Clarke confirms that in June, July, and August, 2001,
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned the
president in daily briefings of unprecedented
indications that a major al Qaeda attack was going to
happen against the United States somewhere in the world
in the weeks and months ahead. Yet, Clarke was still
unable to convene a cabinet-level meeting to address the
issue.
Condoleezza Rice has testified that George Tenet met
with the president 40 times to warn him that a major
al-Qaeda attack was going to take place, and that in
response the president did not convene any meetings of
top officials. At such meetings, the FBI could have
shared information on possible terrorists enrolled at
flight schools. Among the many preventive steps that
could have been taken, the Federal Aviation
Administration, airlines, and airports might have been
put on full alert.
According to Condoleezza Rice, the first and only
cabinet-level meeting prior to 9/11 to discuss the
threat of terrorist attacks took place on September 4,
2001, one week before the attacks in New York and
Washington.
On August 6, 2001, President Bush was presented a
President's Daily Brief (PDB) article titled "Bin Laden
Determined to Strike in U.S.” The lead sentence of that
PDB article indicated that Bin Laden and his followers
wanted to "follow the example of World Trade Center
bomber Ramzi Yousef and 'bring the fighting to
America.'” The article warned: "Al-Qa'ida
members--including some who are US citizens--have
resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the
group apparently maintains a support structure that
could aid attacks."
The article cited a "more sensational threat reporting
that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft," but
indicated that the CIA had not been able to corroborate
such reporting. The PDB item included information from
the FBI indicating "patterns of suspicious activity in
this country consistent with preparations for hijackings
or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance
of federal buildings in New York.” The article also
noted that the CIA and FBI were investigating "a call to
our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin
Laden supporters was in the US planning attacks with
explosives."
The president spent the rest of August 6, and almost all
the rest of August 2001 on vacation. There is no
evidence that he called any meetings of his advisers to
discuss this alarming report. When the title and
substance of this PDB article were later reported in the
press, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
began a sustained campaign to play down its
significance, until the actual text was eventually
released by the White House.
New York Times writer Douglas Jehl put it this way: "In
a single 17-sentence document, the intelligence briefing
delivered to President Bush in August 2001 spells out
the who, hints at the what and points towards the where
of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that
followed 36 days later."
Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the joint
congressional committee investigating the performance of
the US intelligence community before September 11, 2001,
reported in mid-September 2002 that intelligence reports
a year earlier "reiterated a consistent and constant
theme: Osama bin Laden's intent to launch terrorist
attacks inside the United States."
That joint inquiry revealed that just two months before
September 11, an intelligence briefing for "senior
government officials" predicted a terrorist attack with
these words: "The attack will be spectacular and
designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S.
facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been
made. Attack will occur with little or no warning."
Given the White House's insistence on secrecy with
regard to what intelligence was given to President Bush,
the joint-inquiry report does not divulge whether he
took part in that briefing. Even if he did not, it
strains credulity to suppose that those "senior
government officials" would have kept its alarming
substance from the president.
Again, there is no evidence that the president held any
meetings or took any action to deal with the threats of
such attacks.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXXIV
OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTACKS OF
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
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,
obstructed investigations into the attacks on the World
Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Following September 11, 2001, President Bush and Vice
President Cheney took strong steps to thwart any and all
proposals that the circumstances of the attack be
addressed. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was
forced to renege on his public promise on September 23
that a "White Paper" would be issued to explain the
circumstances. Less than two weeks after that promise,
Powell apologized for his "unfortunate choice of words,"
and explained that Americans would have to rely on
"information coming out in the press and in other ways."
On Sept. 26, 2001, President Bush drove to Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley,
Virginia, stood with Director of Central Intelligence
George Tenet and said: "My report to the nation is,
we've got the best intelligence we can possibly have
thanks to the men and women of the C.I.A.” George Tenet
subsequently and falsely claimed not to have visited the
president personally between the start of Bush's long
Crawford vacation and September 11, 2001.
Testifying before the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004,
Tenet answered a question from Commission member Timothy
Roemer by referring to the president's vacation (July
29-August 30) in Crawford and insisting that he did not
see the president at all in August 2001. "You never
talked with him?" Roemer asked. "No," Tenet replied,
explaining that for much of August he too was "on
leave.” An Agency spokesman called reporters that same
evening to say Tenet had misspoken, and that Tenet had
briefed Bush on August 17 and 31. The spokesman
explained that the second briefing took place after the
president had returned to Washington, and played down
the first one, in Crawford, as uneventful.
In his book, At the Center of the Storm, (2007) Tenet,
refers to what is almost certainly his August 17 visit
to Crawford as a follow-up to the "Bin Laden Determined
to Strike in the US" article in the CIA-prepared
President's Daily Brief of August 6. That briefing was
immortalized in a Time Magazine photo capturing Harriet
Myers holding the PDB open for the president, as two CIA
officers sit by. It is the same briefing to which the
president reportedly reacted by telling the CIA briefer,
"All right, you've covered your ass now." (Ron Suskind,
The One-Percent Doctrine, p. 2, 2006). In At the Center
of the Storm, Tenet writes: "A few weeks after the
August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to Crawford to
make sure that the president stayed current on events."
A White House press release suggests Tenet was also
there a week later, on August 24. According to the
August 25, 2001, release, President Bush, addressing a
group of visitors to Crawford on August 25, told them:
"George Tenet and I, yesterday, we piled in the new
nominees for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice
Chairman and their wives and went right up the canyon."
In early February, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney
warned then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that if
Congress went ahead with an investigation,
administration officials might not show up to testify.
As pressure grew for an investigation, the president and
vice president agreed to the establishment of a
congressional joint committee to conduct a "Joint
Inquiry." Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the
Inquiry, opened the Joint Inquiry's final public hearing
in mid-September 2002 with the following disclaimer: "I
need to report that, according to the White House and
the Director of Central Intelligence, the president's
knowledge of intelligence information relevant to this
inquiry remains classified, even when the substance of
the intelligence information has been declassified."
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, also known
as the 9/11 Commission, was created on November 27,
2002, following the passage of congressional legislation
signed into law by President Bush. The President was
asked to testify before the Commission. He refused to
testify except for one hour in private with only two
Commission members, with no oath administered, with no
recording or note taking, and with the Vice President at
his side. Commission Co-Chair Lee Hamilton has written
that he believes the commission was set up to fail, was
underfunded, was rushed, and did not receive proper
cooperation and access to information.
A December 2007 review of classified documents by former
members of the Commission found that the commission had
made repeated and detailed requests to the CIA in 2003
and 2004 for documents and other information about the
interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and had been
told falsely by a top C.I.A. official that the agency
had "produced or made available for review" everything
that had been requested.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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 XXXV
ENDANGERING THE HEALTH OF 911 FIRST RESPONDERS
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,
recklessly endangered the health of first responders,
residents, and workers at and near the former location
of the World Trade Center in New York City.
The Inspector General of the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) August 21, 2003, report numbered
2003-P-00012 and entitled "EPA's Response to the World
Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas
for Improvement," includes the following findings:
"[W]hen EPA made a September 18 announcement that the
air was 'safe' to breathe, it did not have sufficient
data and analyses to make such a blanket statement. At
that time, air monitoring data was lacking for several
pollutants of concern, including particulate matter and
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Furthermore, The White
House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) influenced,
through the collaboration process, the information that
EPA communicated to the public through its early press
releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring
statements and delete cautionary ones."
"As a result of the White House CEQ's influence,
guidance for cleaning indoor spaces and information
about the potential health effects from WTC debris were
not included in EPA- issued press releases. In addition,
based on CEQ's influence, reassuring information was
added to at least one press release and cautionary
information was deleted from EPA's draft version of that
press release. . . . The White House's role in EPA's
public communications about WTC environmental conditions
was described in a September 12, 2001, e-mail from the
EPA Deputy Administrator's Chief of Staff to senior EPA
officials:
"'All statements to the media should be cleared through
the NSC [National Security Council] before they are
released.'
"According to the EPA Chief of Staff, one particular CEQ
official was designated to work with EPA to ensure that
clearance was obtained through NSC. The Associate
Administrator for the EPA Office of Communications,
Education, and Media Relations (OCEMR) said that no
press release could be issued for a 3- to 4-week period
after September 11 without approval from the CEQ
contact."
Acting EPA Administrator Marianne Horinko, who sat in on
EPA meetings with the White House has said in an
interview that the White House played a coordinating
role. The National Security Council played the key role,
filtering incoming data on ground zero air and water,
Horinko said: "I think that the thinking was, these are
experts in WMD (weapons of mass destruction), so they
should have the coordinating role."
In the cleanup of the Pentagon following September 11,
2001, Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws
were enforced, and no workers became ill. At the World
Trade Center site, the same laws were not enforced.
In the years since the release of the EPA Inspector
General's above-cited report, the Bush Administration
has still not affected a clean-up of the indoor air in
apartments and workspaces near the site.
Screenings conducted at the Mount Sinai Medical Center
and released in the September 10, 2004, Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) of the federal Centers
For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), produced the
following results:
"Both upper and lower respiratory problems and mental
health difficulties are widespread among rescue and
recovery workers who dug through the ruins of the World
Trade Center in the days following its destruction in
the attack of September 11, 2001.
"An analysis of the screenings of 1,138 workers and
volunteers who responded to the World Trade Center
disaster found that nearly three-quarters of them
experienced new or worsened upper respiratory problems
at some point while working at Ground Zero. And half of
those examined had upper and/or lower respiratory
symptoms that persisted up to the time of their
examinations, an average of eight months after their WTC
efforts ended."
A larger study released in 2006 found that roughly 70
percent of nearly 10,000 workers tested at Mount Sinai
from 2002 to 2004 reported that they had new or
substantially worsened respiratory problems while or
after working at ground zero. This study showed that
many of the respiratory ailments, including sinusitis
and asthma, and gastrointestinal problems related to
them, initially reported by ground zero workers
persisted or grew worse over time. Most of the ground
zero workers in the study who reported trouble breathing
while working there were still having those problems two
and a half years later, an indication of chronic illness
unlikely to improve over time.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George
W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as
President, 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.