Published in Graffiti

Weaponsgate Bites Bush

by Gary R Zuckett

Thirty years ago, president Richard Nixon was forced to resign to head-off a call for his impeachment after his lies denying sending burglars into Democratic headquarters were revealed. President Clinton barely survived a Congressional impeachment hearing after lying about semen stains on an aid's dress. What will happen if it turns out Bush and his staff were lying about WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and then using it as the reason to invade Iraq?

According to recent polls by NPR, Gallup and CBS quoted in an article at www.tompaine.com  called Age, Gender and WMD, the American public is now split 50/50 on whether the was in Iraq was "worth the cost." The public is becoming even more skeptical when asked about Iraq's supposed WMD. As the war drags on (as of this writing over fifty Americans have been killed in daily attacks since the war was "won") and the costs to our economy and social programs become more pronounced, support for Bush's oil war is slipping and questions on the missing WMD are increasing.

Bush & Co. made unambiguous declarations before the war on the numbers and locations of these weapons and called for their elimination as the major reason for the sacrifice of our sons and daughters overseas. Below are some of those statements as compiled at www.voiceforchange.org. 

"It [Iraq] possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons... And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons." President Bush on October 7, 2002 in Cincinnati.

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there [in Iraq]." White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer on January 9, 2003 in his daily press briefing

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." President Bush on March 17, 2003 in his Address to the Nation

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

John Dean, Nixon's advisor who warned him of the "cancer on his presidency" i.e. Watergate, writes in a recent Findlaw.com article about the implications of Weaponsgate, "In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. [...] To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be 'a high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony 'to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.'" So 'fess up George, did you "cook the books" on WMD or not?

In an interview at tompaine.com Dean comments on the chance that Congress, controlled by the Republican Party, would ever impeach Bush, "Absent a public outcry, Congress will do nothing. The only conception of 'checks and balances' remaining in the Congressional conscience are campaign contribution checks, and whether they have met or exceeded the balance of the last campaign. While there are a few members of Congress trying to flush out the facts, like Congressman Henry Waxman, he is the exception, not the rule."

An article in the NewYorker by Seymour M. Hersh at http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact called "Selective Intelligence" outlines a disturbing scenario of made-to-order intelligence info. Quoting a former intelligence official, Hersh reveals, "One of the reasons I left was my sense that they were using the intelligence from the C.I.A. and other agencies only when it fit their agenda. They didn't like the intelligence they were getting, and so they brought in people to write the stuff. They were so crazed and so far out and so difficult to reason with-to the point of being bizarre. Dogmatic, as if they were on a mission from God." He added, "If it doesn't fit their theory, they don't want to accept it."

OK public, now's the time to cry out in anger and outrage that a White House resident misled the nation in order to support a preemptive war halfway across the world. Call for an independent investigation of this scam. Contact your Senators and Representative (Capitol switchboard: 202-225-3121) to ask for an Independent Commission.

Urge your Senators and Representative to join the call for an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the discrepancies between administration claims about Iraq's weapons programs and the real truth. The investigation should include open hearings with testimony from government and outside witnesses that conclude with an unclassified report to the American people.

An on-line petition is available here so those of you reading this on the web can click and send. Whatever way you do it, make noise about this right now and maybe we can nail this guy (or at least keep him distracted) before he starts another unnecessary war…

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