Bush, Facts, Lies, Impeachment and Congress

By Bob Fantina

The Center for Public Integrity, a private, non-profit organization, has identified 954 ‘false statements’ that the Bush Administration made during its desperate and successful efforts to start a war with Iraq. Mr. Bush himself led the way, with 260 ‘false statements,’ followed by the ‘hero’ of the Gulf War, then Secretary of State Colin Powell, with 254. While space does not allow the listing of all 954, a small sampling, with the accompanying facts, is representative:

President Bush, September 2002: “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.”

Fact: The Iraqi regime possessed no biological or chemical weapons, was not rebuilding factories to make more, and had no capacity to launch such non-existent weapons.

Vice President Dick Cheney, August 22, 2002: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
“There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”

Fact: Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Since he had none, he was not amassing them to ‘use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.’

In July of 2002, the arrogant, murderously incompetent Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was asked if Iraq had relationships with Al-Qaeda terrorists. Mr. Rumsfeld was confident with his one-word response: “Sure.”

Fact: In that same month, the Defense Intelligence Agency did not find any “compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al-Qaeda.”

President Bush, January 28, 2003: “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories.”

Fact: Prior to Mr. Bush’s assertion that the weapons and laboratories had been found, experts who examined the two mobile labs in question determined that the labs had not been used for weapons, chemical or otherwise. Further studies indicated they had been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.

These are just a few of the lies that the Bush administration told the world during his frantic rush to war with Iraq. Compare these to then President Clinton’s major lie, the one that resulted in his impeachment: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
Is lying about an illicit sexual relationship of greater consequence than lying about the threat to the U.S. from another country? Mr. Clinton’s lies resulted in nothing that concerned anyone other them himself, his wife and Ms. Lewinsky. Mr. Bush’s lies resulted in a catastrophic war, the overthrow of a sovereign government, the destabilization of a fragile part of the world and the deaths of at least a million people. Why, one desperately wants to know, will Congress not act? Why is impeachment, in the words of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, still ‘off the table?’

The founding fathers instituted a system of checks and balances, a major portion of which consists of the executive (president) and legislative (Congress) branches of government. Those, combined with the judicial branch, are intended to assure that no branch takes unjust power unto itself. During much of Mr. Bush’s reign of terror he was completely unchecked, partly because his party also controlled Congress and partly because he was able to capitalize on the fears of many Americans following September 11, 2001. He fanned those fears into near panic, which enabled him to start two unnecessary wars; wiretap the telephones of U.S. citizens; curtail Constitutionally-guaranteed rights to free speech, free assembly and due process; discard decades-old, almost universally accepted Geneva Convention provisions and torture prisoners, and establish secret torture camps in foreign countries all the while enriching the already rich as the poor and middle class became more and more disenfranchised. He was appointed president when he lost the popular vote, and four years later used lies and distortions against his opponent to actually be elected.

Meanwhile, Congress has looked on with a benign smile, accepting it all and, when questioned, summoning up the tried and true theme of protecting America from the terrorists. In November of 2006, U.S. citizens had had enough; they went to the polls and turned out the war-mongering, fear-mongering Republicans and installed a Congress that professed it would bring a new way forward and end U.S. involvement in Iraq. The old Congress that had been complicit in all Mr. Bush’s crimes to date would slink away into much-deserved disgrace, as the new Congress set the tone for Washington and demanded a new foreign policy, and controlled the purse strings to assure the wishes of the populace would be fulfilled.

The voters have been understandably frustrated and angered by the ‘meet-the-new- boss-same-as-the-old-boss’ mentality that the new Congress brought to Washington. That new Congress has done nothing but continue to act as a rubber stamp on all Mr. Bush’s crimes. The old Congress unquestioningly bought his lies that led to war; the new Congress unquestioningly buys the new ones that continue it.

What will it take? What must this president do, what evidence of past and current crimes must be exposed before Congress performs its Constitutionally-mandated duty and begins impeachment proceedings? In 1974 President Richard Nixon resigned in the face of certain impeachment, ostensibly because he didn’t want to put the nation through that experience. Twenty-four years later the nation needs that experience to regain the principles on which it was built; without impeachment now a dangerous precedent is set which can only lead to additional erosion of basic civil right, extreme societal polarization and perennial war with all the death, grief and destruction that war inevitably brings. If Mr. Nixon did indeed resign for the altruistic reason mentioned, he did a service to the country. If Congress does not impeach now, it does a tremendous disservice to the nation and the world.

Can we expect now, in the light of the report issued by the Center for Public Integrity (a word unknown in most Congressional offices) that Congress will act? Will a special prosecutor finally be called to investigate Mr. Bush’s crimes? Will America’s long nightmare finally begin to end?

Like Mr. Bush’s ‘election’ in 2000, this is a fairy tale; it simply won’t happen. Members of Congress are too busy running for president to perform the duties they were hired for and are handsomely paid to perform. They are too busy assuring all and sundry that they are ‘tough on terrorism’ and ‘have what it takes,’ whatever on earth that may mean. They may now say that, with Mr. Bush’s final year underway, there is no point; he will be out of office before any impeachment panel could complete its work, as if some statute of limitations coincides with his term in office.

The future of the U.S. has looked bleak in the past, but seldom if ever has one president so succeeded in curtailing rights and starting wars with such impunity. The country’s only hope is Congress, and since the current one has proven itself to be spineless and craven, we must await the next election cycle to vote the current members out. One hopes it is not too late by then.