House Judiciary Democrats Issue Report Alleging Gross Misconduct By Bush Over Iraq

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House Judiciary Democrats issue report alleging gross misconduct by Bush over Iraq

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/House_Judiciary_Democrats_issue_report_alleging_12 20.html

The Full Report
Click Here (http://rawstory.com/other/conyersreportrawstory.pdf)

12/20/2005

In order to expedite getting the story out, RAW STORY has reproduced the executive summary of the report here. Following the executive summary there is a link to the full report.

Executive Summary

This Minority Report has been produced at the request of Representative John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. He made this request in the wake of the President’s failure to respond to a letter submitted by 122 Members of Congress and more than 500,000 Americans in July of this year asking him whether the assertions set forth in the Downing Street Minutes were accurate. Mr. Conyers asked staff, by year end 2005, to review the available information concerning possible misconduct by the Bush Administration in the run up to the Iraq War and post-invasion statements and actions, and to develop legal conclusions and make legislative and other recommendations to him.

In brief, we have found that there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration.

There is at least a prima facie case that these actions by the President, Vice-President and other members of the Bush Administration violate a number of federal laws, including (1) Committing a Fraud against the United States; (2) Making False Statements to Congress; (3) The War Powers Resolution; (4) Misuse of Government Funds; (5) federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; (6) federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other individuals; and (7) federal laws and regulations concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence.

While these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable misconduct, because the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have blocked the ability of Members to obtain information directly from the Administration concerning these matters or responding to these charges, more investigatory authority is needed before recommendations can be made regarding specific Articles of Impeachment. As a result, we recommend that Congress establish a select committee with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush Administration with regard to the Iraq war detailed in this Report and report to the Committee on the Judiciary on possible impeachable offenses.

In addition, we believe the failure of the President, Vice President and others in the Bush Administration to respond to a myriad requests for information concerning these charges, or to otherwise account for explain a number of specific misstatements they have made in the run up to War and other actions warrants, at minimum, the introduction and Congress’ approval of Resolutions of Censure against Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney.

Further, we recommend that Ranking Member Conyers and others consider referring the potential violations of federal criminal law detailed in this Report to the Department of Justice for investigation; Congress should pass legislation to limit government secrecy, enhance oversight of the Executive Branch, request notification and justification of presidential pardons of Administration officials, ban abusive treatment of detainees, ban the use of chemical weapons, and ban the practice of paying foreign media outlets to publish news stories prepared by or for the Pentagon; and the House should amend its Rules to permit Ranking Members of Committees to schedule official Committee hearings and call witnesses to investigate Executive Branch misconduct.

The Report rejects the frequent contention by the Bush Administration that there pre-war conduct has been reviewed and they have been exonerated. No entity has ever considered whether the Administration misled Americans about the decision to go to War, and the Senate Intelligence Committee has not yet conducted a review of pre-war intelligence information, while the Silberman-Robb report specifically cautioned, that intelligence manipulation “was not part of our inquiry.” There has also not been any independent inquiry concerning torture and other legal violations in Iraq; nor has there been an independent review of the pattern of cover-ups and political retribution by the Bush Administration against its critics, other than the very narrow and still ongoing inquiry of Special Counsel Fitzgerald.

While the scope of this Report is largely limited to Iraq, it also holds lessons for our Nation at a time of entrenched one-party rule and abuse of power in Washington. If the present Administration is willing to flaunt, if not break, the law in order to achieve its political objectives in Iraq, and Congress is unwilling to confront or challenge their hegemony, many of our cherished democratic principles are in jeopardy. This is true not only with respect to the Iraq War, but also other areas of foreign policy, privacy and civil liberties, and matters of economic and social justice. Indeed as this Report is being finalized, we have just learned of another potential significant abuse of executive power by the President, ordering the National Security Agency to engage in domestic spying and wiretapping without obtaining court approval in possible violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

It is tragic that our Nation has invaded another sovereign nation because “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,” as stated in the Downing Street Minutes. It is equally tragic that the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress have been unwilling to examine these facts or take action to prevent this scenario from occurring again. Since they appear unwilling to act, it is incumbent on individual Members of Congress as well as the American public to act to protect our constitutional form of government.

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September 11 and its Aftermath: Beating the Drums for War

(Gold9472: Sorry if this is f-d up. I grabbed it from the PDF.)

It was the September 11 tragedy that gave the President and members of his Administration the political opportunity to invade Iraq without provocation. It was also in the immediate aftermath of September 11 that it became clear that the President had made up his mind to invade. We know this now for several reasons B we have first-hand evidence concerning President Bush's intentions; we have direct evidence concerning the intent of other senior members of his Administration; we have information provided through high-level Administration sources; and we have documentary and other evidence concerning specific actions taken by the United Statesmilitary that brought our nation on the verge of war with Iraq before Congressional authorization was sought.

Donald Rumsfeld began pushing for retaliatory attacks against Iraq almost immediately after the September 11 attacks. CBS News reported that at 2:40 p.m. on September 11, Secretary Rumsfeld stated: A[I want the] best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden].86

Rumsfeld went on to say, [g]o massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.87

Spencer Ackerman and John Judis of The New Republic reported that, ADeputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz floated the idea that Iraq, with more than 20 years of inclusion on the State Department's terror-sponsor list, be held immediately accountable.88

The very first evidence regarding President Bush's inclination to invade Iraq after the September 11 attacks occurred the very next day when he instructed National Security official Richard A. Clarke to go out of his way to find a link between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks. Richard Clarke recounts the following in his book, Against All Enemies:

[On September 12th] I left the Video Conferencing Center and there, wandering alone around the situation room, was the president. He looked like he wanted something to do. He grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room. Look,he told us, I know you have a lot to do and all . . . but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way. I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed. ‘But, Mr. President, al Qaeda did this.’ I know, I know, but . . . see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred’. . . .‘Look into Iraq, Saddam, the President said testily and left us. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty stared after him with her mouth hanging open.89

This inclination was evidenced to other senior Republicans as well. For example, Trent Lott observed in an interview on Meet the Press that shortly after September 11, the President made clear his intention to go after Iraq: Well, beginning in August that year and into the fall--in fact, beginning not too long after 9/11--as we had leadership meetings at breakfast with the president, he would go around the world and talk about what was going on, where the threats were, where the dangers were, and even in private discussions, it was clear to me that he thought Iraq was a destabilizing force, was a danger and a growing danger, and that we were going to have to deal with that problem.90

We have also received confirmation of the Bush Administration's intention to invade Iraq after the September 11 attacks from various high-level Administration sources. For example, General Wesley Clark revealed on Meet the Press that shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House was asking people to link Saddam Hussein with the September 11 attacks. Clark stated:

[T]here was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein. . . . Well, it came from the White House . . . it came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein I said, But I'm willing to say it but what's your evidence? And I never got any evidence.91

On September 17, 2001, President Bush signed a 22-page document marked TOP SECRET that outlined the plan for going to war in Afghanistan as part of a global campaign against terrorism. As one senior Administration official commented, the direction to the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq appeared Aalmost as a footnote.92

“On September 19 and 20, an advisory group known as the Defense Policy Board met at the Pentagon B with Secretary Rumsfeld in attendance B and discussed the importance of ousting Hussein.”93

According to Administration sources:

They met in Rumsfeld's conference room. After a C.I.A. briefing on the 9/11 attacks, Perle introduced two guest speakers. The first was Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, a longtime associate of Cheney's and Wolfowitz's. Lewis told the meeting that America must respond to 9/11 with a show of strength: to do otherwise would be taken in the Islamic world as a sign of weakness-one it would be bound to exploit. At the same time, he said, America should support democratic reformers in the Middle East. "Such as," he said, turning to the second of Perle's guest speakers, "my friend here, Dr. Chalabi” . . . . At the meeting Chalabi said that, although there was as yet no evidence linking Iraq to 9/11, failed states such as Saddam's were a breeding ground for terrorists, and Iraq, he told those at the meeting, possessed W.M.D. During the later part of the second day, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld listened carefully to the debate. “Rumsfeld was getting confirmation of his own instincts . . .” Perle says. “He seemed neither surprised nor discomfited by the idea of taking action against Iraq.”94

The 9-11 Commission Report further notes that as early as September 20, 2001, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, suggested attacking Iraq in response to the September 11 attacks. In a draft memo, Feith expressed disappointment at the limited options immediately available in Afghanistan and the lack of ground options. [He] suggested instead hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, perhaps deliberately selecting a non-al Qaeda target like Iraq.95

End Part I

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Also, on September 20, it is reported that President Bush told Prime Minister Blair of the need to respond militarily with Iraq. Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror. As noted above, Bush replied, AI agree with you Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.96

By late November 2001, the President essentially instructed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to develop an Iraq war plan, which Rumsfeld began to implement. In a CBS News 60 Minutes interview about his book, A Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward describes their meeting:

President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically, and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, AWhat have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.97

The evidence of the President's determination to go to war continues on through 2002. On January 29, 2002, President Bush gave his State of the Union address in which he stated that Iraq was part of an Aaxis of evil along with South Korea and Iran.98 Although Administration officials sought to temper the meaning of that reference, the President's own speech writers have subsequently made it clear that the President was intending to target Iraq. As James Mann recounts: David Frum, then one of Bush's speech writers, later claimed that the original aim of the axis-of-evil speech was specifically to target Iraq. Mark Gerson, Bush's chief speech writer had asked Frum first to find a justification for war against Iraq, he wrote; later Iran was added, and finally North Korea as a seemingly casual afterthought. Frum's perspective reflected both his inexperience as a speech writer and also the thinking of neoconservatives within the administration, who were eager for a regime change in Iraq.99

We have also learned from three sources that beginning as early as February 2002, the Bush Administration took specific concrete steps to deploy military troops and assets into Iraq. First, in February 2002, Senator Bob Graham told the Council on Foreign Relations that a military commander had said to him: Senator, we have stopped fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan. We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq.100

Second, it is clear from Bob Woodward's book, A Plan of Attack that the redeployment began in the summer of 2002, well before authorized by Congress:

On July 17, Franks updated Rumsfeld on the preparatory tasks in the region. He carefully listed the cost of each and the risk to the mission if they didn't proceed along the timeline which set completion by December 1. Total cost: about $700 million . . . . Later the president praised Rumsfeld and Franks for this strategy of moving troops in and expanding the infrastructure. It was, in my judgment, Bush said, a very smart recommendation by Don and Tommy to put certain elements in place that could easily be removed and it could be done so in a way that was quiet so that we didn't create a lot of noise and anxiety.” . . . He carefully added, AThe pre-positioning of forces should not be viewed as a commitment on my part to use military. He acknowledged with a terse Right. Yup. that the Afghanistan war and war on terrorism provided the excuse, that it was done covertly, and that it was expensive . . . By the end of July, Bush had approved some 30 projects that would eventually cost $700 million. He discussed it with Nicholas E. Calio, the head of White House congressional relations. Congress, which is supposed to control the purse strings, had no realknowledge or involvement, had not even been notified that the Pentagon wanted to reprogram money.101

In his interview on 60 Minutes, Mr. Woodward himself points out this was a basic violation of the Constitution:

Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress.102

The funds were diverted from appropriation laws specifically allocated for the war in Afghanistan.103

Third, Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker received similar confirmation from his Administration sources of the reallocation of intelligence assets from Afghanistan to Iraq in preparation for an invasion: The Bush Administration took many intelligence operations that had been aimed at Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world and redirected them to the Persian Gulf. Linguists and special operatives were abruptly reassigned, and several ongoing anti-terrorism intelligence programs were curtailed.104

Further, beginning in February 2002, senior White House officials were also confirming to the press that military ouster of Saddam Hussein was inevitable. On February 13, 2002, Knight Ridder reported that, according to their sources, President Bush has decided to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power and ordered the CIA, the Pentagon and other agencies to devise a combination of military, diplomatic and covert steps to achieve that goal, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday.105

White House officials were also telling Seymour Hersh that the decision to go to war had been made and that a process to support that determination had been created:

By early March, 2002, a former White House official told me, it was understood by many in the White House that the President had decided, in his own mind, to go to war . . . . The Bush Administration took many intelligence operations that had been aimed at Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world and redirected them to the Persian Gulf. . . . Chalabi's defector reports were now flowing from the Pentagon directly to the Vice-President's office, and then on to the President, with little prior evaluation by intelligence professionals.106

Also, in March 2002, President Bush reportedly poked his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and said F*** Saddam. We're taking him out.107

At the time, Rice was meeting with three U.S. Senators and discussing options for dealing with Iraq through the United Nations or other peaceful means. However, a source reported Bush wasn't interested. He waved his hand dismissively. . . and neatly summed up his Iraq policy in that short phrase. The Senators laughed uncomfortably; Rice flashed a knowing smile.108

By late March 2002, Vice President Cheney was telling his fellow Republicans that a decision to invade Iraq had been made:

Dick Cheney dropped by a Senate Republican policy lunch soon after his 10-day tour of the Middle East - the one meant to drum up support for a U.S. military strike against Iraq. . . . Before he spoke, he said no one should repeat what he said, and Senators and staff members promptly put down their pens and pencils. Then he gave them some surprising news. The question was no longer if the U.S. would attack Iraq, he said. The only question was when.109

In his book, Bob Woodward describes Cheney as a Apowerful, steamrolling force obsessed with Saddam and taking him out.110

By July of 2002, Condoleezza Rice was offering further confirmation that President Bush's mind was made up regarding a decision to invade Iraq. At this time, State Department Director of Policy Planning Richard N. Haass held a meeting with Rice and asked if they should discuss Iraq. Rice said, Don't bother. The president has made a decision.111

We know that, in early August 2002, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair spoke by telephone and cemented the decision to go to war. A White House official who read the transcript of their conversation disclosed that war was inevitable by the end of the call. On August 29, 2002, after three months of war exercises conducted by the Pentagon, President Bush reportedly approved a document entitled Iraq goals, objectives and strategy.112

The document cites far-reaching goals and the study refers to "some unstated objectives" including installing a pro-American government in Iraq and using it to influence events in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iran.113

Not only is it clear that a decision had been made to go to war in early 2002, it has also become apparent that the U.S. was actually engaging in acts of war by May 2002. On April 28, 2002, The New York Times wrote: The Bush administration, in developing a potential approach for toppling President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, is concentrating its attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops. . . . Senior officials now acknowledge that any offensive would probably be delayed until early next year, allowing time to create the right military, economic and diplomatic conditions.114

Bombing activity designed to increase military pressure on Iraq appears to have commenced by May 2002, and intensified in August 2002, following a meeting of the National Security Council.115 The Sunday London Times reported that, by the end of August [2002] the raids had become a full air offensive.116

As former veteran CIA intelligence officer Ray McGovern testified:

The step-up in bombing was incredible. In March-April of 2002, there were hardly any bombs dropped at all. By the time September came along, several hundred tons of bombs had been dropped. The war had really started.117

On May 27, 2002, a former US Air Force combat veteran Tim Goodrich told the World Tribunal on Iraq jury in Istanbul, Turkey: We were dropping bombs then, and I saw bombing intensify. All the documents coming out now, the Downing Street Memo and others, confirm what I had witnessed in Iraq. The war had already begun while our leaders were telling us that they were going to try all diplomatic options first.118

“Tommy Franks, the allied commander, has since admitted that this operation was designed to ‘degrade’ Iraqi air defenses in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf war.”119

The United States and Britain initially attempted to justify these raids by claiming that “the rise in air attacks was in response to Iraqi attempts to shoot down allied aircraft.”120 However, in July 2005, in response to British MP Sir Menzies Campbell's request for data, the British Ministry of Defence released figures that would indicate that the true reason for the raids was to put pressure on the Iraqis.121

The data shows that in Athe first seven months of 2001 the allies recorded a total of 370 provocations by the Iraqis against allied aircraft. But in the seven months between October 2001 and May 2002 there were just 32.122

The records show that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did in the whole of 2001.123

The secret air war was also confirmed by Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley, who said that Ain 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 carefully selected targets before the war officially started.124

Between March and November 2002, coalition forces attacked Iraqi installations with 253,000 pounds of bombs. In June 2002 specifically, forces bombed Iraq with 20,800 pounds of munitions; in September 2002, the tonnage amounted to 109,200 pounds of bombs.125

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