Fucking A. .. Let's Get It On

The case for impeachment

By BRIAN COONEY
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There is strong evidence for initiating impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush. The crime with which he would be charged is conspiracy to defraud the United States, a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. Fraud includes the deliberate misrepresentation of facts and making statements with reckless indifference to their truth. The list of Bush's co-conspirators would include Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and many others.


The evidence for this conspiracy would take pages to summarize adequately. I will describe here only the worst example - a deception that provided the framework for a host of specific lies and exaggerations. This was the sustained campaign by the Bush administration to suggest that Iraq was involved in 9/11. They never said so directly. Instead, they incessantly referred to 9/11 and to Saddam or Iraq in the same context, under the heading of a "war on terror." Here is just one of countless instances: "He (Saddam) has ordered chemical attacks on Iran, and on more than 40 villages in his own country. These actions killed or injured at least 20,000 people, more than six times the number of people who died in the attacks of Sept. 11."


This trick resembles what advertisers do when they show the purchaser of a product surrounded by admiring members of the opposite sex. Of course the ad doesn't say that the product will have that effect, and no one really believes it will. After all, it's just an ad.


But when the president and senior members of his administration made the association between 9/11 and Iraq, they were tapping into the trust that Americans tend to give a president in matters of national security. As a result, by September 2003, nearly 70 percent of Americans believed that Saddam was involved in 9/11. That same month, Bush finally admitted that there was no evidence of Saddam's involvement, but his deception had already succeeded. He had created enormous popular pressure on Congress to authorize war against Iraq. What politician would want to seem unwilling to retaliate against the evil forces behind 9/11?


With the deception about Saddam and 9/11 as a constant background, Bush and company repeatedly made specific false or misleading statements in the year preceding and immediately following the onset of war. These reached a crescendo in the month before congressional authorization of war. By way of summary, I will quote from "Iraq on the Record," a report published by the minority staff of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform on March 16, 2004. It is well-documented, available online, and can be checked against other online sources. This report presents "237 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq" made by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Rice. "These statements were made in 125 separate appearances, consisting of 40 speeches, 26 press conferences and briefings, 53 interviews, 4 written statements, and two congressional testimonies. Most of the statements in the database were misleading because they expressed certainty where none existed or failed to acknowledge the doubts of intelligence officials. Ten of the statements were simply false."


In the aftermath of a bloody occupation of Iraq and investigations revealing the administration's dishonesty and incompetence, we are faced with disturbing questions. Why would a president of the United States and his senior staff be so reckless about the truth in arguing for war? How could they take such a chance with our soldiers' lives and the nation's security and reputation? Weren't they at least worried about their own political future?


Perhaps the answer to these questions is that Bush and his team were convinced that once Saddam was defeated, American forces would be, as Cheney put it, "greeted as liberators," and combat would be over in weeks. This speedy triumph would put to rest doubts about the case for war. After all, nothing succeeds like success. Throughout history, many rogue politicians and generals have acted on the belief that it is easier to get forgiveness than permission.


Even if Bush manages to get an acceptable government established in Iraq, we should not forgive and forget how he got us there. Perhaps many Americans would claim that overthrowing a tyrant like Saddam was reason enough for war. But Bush and his co-conspirators did not allow Congress to vote on that question. That was their fraud against our government.


Brian Cooney is a professor of philosophy at Centre College.