"In response to the reader who asked about Cheney, I believe a thorough investigation of Cheney's activities--including his misstatements about the war-- could result in his impeachment as well. There is nothing in the Constitution to prevent a double impeachment. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, would become president. I say more about this in my book, The Impeachment of George W. Bush."
Elizabeth Holtzman, former member of Congress from New York, to Portside's list-serve www.portside.org http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070130_robert_scheer_a_case_for_impeachment/ A Case for Impeachment by Robert Scheer January 30, 2007 Not all lies are created equal. It is understood that there is a chasm of importance between little white lies and big black ones. Most would agree that lying about a consensual sexual affair, even by the president, is of significantly lesser concern than lying about the proliferation of nuclear weapons as an excuse to take the nation to war. How then is it possible that a Republican-controlled Congress impeached President Bill Clinton over his attempt to conceal marital infidelity but that a Democratic-led Congress will not even consider impeaching this president for far more serious transgressions against the public trust? That is the question that arises from early revelations in the trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. This case's importance lies not in the narrow charge that Libby committed perjury in testifying about his role in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Wilson; that was merely one facet of a far-ranging plot to deceive Congress and the public about perhaps the most important issue of our time: the prospect of terrorists obtaining a weapon of mass destruction. The infamous 16-word State of the Union claim by President Bush that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had sought to obtain enriched uranium from the African country of Niger was known to be based on fraudulent documents at the time Bush used this and other false evidence to make his case for war. The Libby case testimony, centered on the chicanery of the vice president, certainly suggests that impeachable offenses occurred at the highest level of the White House. Just how conscious the president was of the deceits conducted under his authority, what he knew and when he knew it, is precisely what an impeachment trial would determine. Consider the testimony concerning White House use of former CIA Director George Tenet in the cover-up of the president's distortions. The record is unmistakably clear that the CIA and other intelligence sources warned the White House before the president's speech not to make the bogus Niger claim, and that the reference had been voided out in a previous speech. Yet, after Ambassador Joseph Wilson exposed this fact more than a year after the invasion, Cheney orchestrated a new deception to shift the blame to Tenet. That is the smoking-gun revelation in the testimony of Cheney's former spokeswoman, Cathie Martin, a Harvard-educated lawyer who still works in the White House. Her word is that of a sophisticated and top-level White House insider and, as described by the Washington Post, one that offers a devastating glimpse into the moral depravity of this administration: "At length, Martin explained how she, Libby and Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley worked late into the night writing a statement to be issued by George Tenet in 2004 in which the CIA boss would take blame for the bogus claim in Bush's State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Africa. After 'delicate' talks, Tenet agreed to say the CIA 'approved' the claim and 'I am responsible'-but even that disappointed Martin, who had wanted Tenet to say that 'we did not express any doubts about Niger.' " Tenet later was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This deliberate corruption of the integrity of the CIA, the nation's premier source of national security information, rises to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors," which the Constitution holds out as the standard for impeachment. And can there be any more egregious example of betraying the oath of office of the president to uphold the Constitution than his deceiving Congress from the very well of the House on the reasons for going to war? The Constitution clearly delegates to Congress, and not to the president, the exclusive power to declare war, and deceiving our representatives in making the case for war is a far more important crime than the perjury charge against Libby. Testimony already has established that Libby was nothing more than a pawn used by Cheney in the vice president's constant and ferocious campaign to trick the nation into war-not a totally surprising quest for a man who had served as CEO for a corporation that has profited so obscenely from the Iraq agony. Cheney, like some Daddy Warbucks cartoon character of old, has been so blatant in his corruption of the nation's second highest office that we seem to have become inured to further revelations of his evil influence. Instead of being shocked, we are more likely jaded by even more examples of the man's use of his office to persistently undermine our democratic heritage. Too bad he wasn't cursed by an overactive libido. *** http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0130-09.htm Published on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 by Reuters Congress Can Stop War, Experts Tell Lawmakers by Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON - The U.S. Congress has the power to end the war in Iraq, a former Bush administration attorney and other high-powered legal experts told a Senate hearing on Tuesday. With many lawmakers poised to confront President George W. Bush by voting disapproval of his war policy in the coming days, four of five experts called before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee said Congress could go further and restrict or stop U.S. involvement if it chose. "I think the constitutional scheme does give Congress broad authority to terminate a war," said Bradford Berenson, a Washington lawyer who was a White House associate counsel under Bush from 2001 to 2003. "It is ultimately Congress that decides the size, scope and duration of the use of military force," said Walter Dellinger, former acting solicitor general -- the government's chief advocate before the Supreme Court -- in 1996-97, and an assistant attorney general three years before that. The hearing was frequently punctuated by outbursts from more than a dozen anti-war protesters, who were asked several times to be quiet but not thrown out. The subcommittee's chairman, Sen. Russ Feingold, said he would introduce a bill on Wednesday prohibiting the use of funds for the war six months after enactment. "Today we've heard convincing testimony and analysis that Congress has the power to stop the war if it wants to," said Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat. The Senate is poised in the coming days to take up a resolution opposing Bush's recent decision to add 21,500 troops in Iraq. But that resolution would not be binding on the president, while legislation to cut funds -- assuming it passed -- would be. However, this idea is much more controversial among lawmakers as many do not want to slash funds when troops are already abroad. WHO'S THE DECIDER? The expert who took a more limited view of Congress' powers under the U.S. Constitution, Robert Turner of the University of Virginia School of Law, echoed Bush's frequent assertion that in matters of war, he is the "decider." "In the conduct of war, in the conduct of foreign affairs, the president is in fact the decider," Turner said. He suggested lawmakers might need to "run for president" if they wanted to manage war policy. At least on that latter point Turner was preaching to the choir: a half-dozen U.S. senators already have expressed an interest in running for the White House in 2008. The other experts said that while the Constitution makes the president commander-in-chief of U.S. forces, Congress' constitutional power to declare war and fund U.S. forces also gave it the power to stop what it had set in motion. Feingold, who considered a presidential run but decided against it, said he had no desire to place troops in danger. His legislation would allow time for the administration to redeploy U.S. forces, while letting a limited number remain in Iraq to conduct "targeted counter-terrorism" and training missions. Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania argued that under the Constitution, the president shared his powers with Congress. "I would respectfully suggest to the president that he is not the sole 'decider,'" said Specter, the head of the Judiciary Committee until Democrats won control from Republicans in November. "The decider is a shared and joint responsibility." One thing was certain: the debate would continue. The new Judiciary Committee chairman, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, and Specter wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asking for his views on the powers of Congress with respect to war. © Copyright 2007 Reuters Ltd. *** http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0201-02.htm Published Thursday, February 1, 2007 by the Inter Press Service Official Lies Over Najaf Battle Exposed by Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily Iraqi government lies over the killing of hundreds of Shias in an attack on Sunday stand exposed by independent investigations carried out by IPS in Iraq. Conflicting reports had arisen earlier on how and why a huge battle broke out around the small village Zarqa, located just a few kilometres northeast of the Shia holy city Najaf, which is 90 km south of Baghdad. One thing certain is that when the smoke cleared, more than 200 people lay dead after more than half a day of fighting Sunday Jan. 28. A U.S. helicopter was shot down, killing two soldiers. Twenty-five members of the Iraqi security force were also killed. "We were going to conduct the usual ceremonies that we conduct every year when we were attacked by Iraqi soldiers," Jabbar al-Hatami, a leader of the al-Hatami Shia Arab tribe told IPS. "We thought it was one of the usual mistakes of the Iraqi army killing civilians, so we advanced to explain to the soldiers that they killed five of us for no reason. But we were surprised by more gunfire from the soldiers." The confrontation took place on the Shia holiday of Ashura which commemorates Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the most revered of Shia saints. Emotions run high at this time, and self-flagellation in public is the norm. Many southern Shia Arabs do not follow Iranian-born cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. They believe the religious leadership should be kept in the hands of Arab clerics. Al-Hatami and al-Khazaali are two major tribes that do not follow Sistani. Tribal members from both believe the attack was launched by the central government of Baghdad to stifle growing Shia-Sunni unity in the area. "Our convoy was close to the al-Hatami convoy on the way to Najaf when we heard the massive shooting, and so we ran to help them because our tribe and theirs are bound with a strong alliance," a 45-year-old man who asked to be referred to as Ahmed told IPS. Ahmed, a member of the al-Khazali tribe said "our two tribes have a strong belief that Iranians are provoking sectarian war in Iraq which is against the belief of all Muslims, and so we announced an alliance with Sunni brothers against any sectarian violence in the country. That did not make our Iranian dominated government happy." The fighting took place on the Diwaniya-Najaf road and spread into nearby date-palm plantations after pilgrims sought refuge there. "American helicopters participated in the slaughter," Jassim Abbas, a farmer from the area told IPS. "They were soon there to kill those pilgrims without hesitation, but they were never there for helping Iraqis in anything they need. We just watched them getting killed group by group while trapped in those plantations." Much of the killing was done by U.S. and British warplanes, eyewitnesses said. Local authorities including the office of Najaf Governor Asaad Abu Khalil who is a member of the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) had claimed before the killings that a group of primarily foreign Sunni fighters with links to al-Qaeda had planned to disrupt the Ashura festival by attacking Shia pilgrims and senior ayatollahs in Najaf. The city is the principal seat of religious learning for Shias in Iraq. Officials claimed that Iraqi security forces had obtained intelligence information from two detained men that had led the Iraqi Scorpion commando squad to prepare for an attack. The intelligence claimed obviously had little impact on how events unfolded. Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bolani announced to reporters at 9 am Sunday morning that Najaf was being attacked by al-Qaeda. Immediately following this announcement the Ministry of National Security (MNS) announced that the dead were members of the Shia splinter extremist group Jund al-Sama (Army of Heaven) who were out to kill senior ayatollahs in Najaf, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Iraq's national security advisor Muaffaq al-Rubaii said just 15 minutes after the MNS announcement that hundreds of Arab fighters had been killed, and that many had been arrested. Rubaii claimed there were Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians and Afghans. But Governor Khalil's office backed away from its initial claims after the dead turned out to be local Shia Iraqis. Iraqi security officials continue to contradict their own statements. Most officials now say that the dead were Shia extremists supported by foreign powers. The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has a pattern of announcing it is fighting terrorists, like its backers in Washington. Many Iraqis in the south now accuse Baghdad of calling them terrorists simply because they refuse to collaborate with the Iranian dominated government. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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