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Bush's Enemies List - Repeating Nixon's Crimes
(By House Judiciary Committee Minority Staff, 20 December 2005)
Full Report: www.truthout.org/3.122005ConRes.pdf

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 a prima facie case that these actions by the President, Vice-President and other members of the Bush Administration violated 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, 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 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. The Senate Intelligence Committee has not yet conducted a review of pre-war intelligence distortion and manipulation, 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 coverups 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 misstate the facts 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 in regard to 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.


The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception,
Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War

[Full Report: www.truthout.org/3.122005ConRes.pdf]

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Executive Summary
Chapter 2. Chronology: Last Throes of Credibility
Chapter 3. Detailed Factual Findings
A. Determination to go to War Before Congressional Authorization
1. Avenging the Father and Working With the Neo-Cons
2. September 11 and its Aftermath: Beating the Drums for War
3. The Downing Street Minutes and Documentary Evidence of an Agreement to go to War
a. Description and Analysis of Various Downing Street Minutes Materials
b. Confirmation and Corroboration of Downing Street Minutes Materials
4. Manipulating Public Opinion
5. Using the United Nations as a Pretext for War
B. Misstating and Manipulating the Intelligence to Justify Pre-emptive War
1. Links to September 11 and al Qaeda
2. Resumed Efforts to Acquire Nuclear Weapons
3. Aluminum Tubes
4. Acquisition of Uranium from Niger
5. Chemical and Biological Weapons
C. Encouraging and Countenancing Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment
1. Documented Instances of Torture and Other Legal Violations
2. Bush Administration Responsibility for Torture and Other Legal Violations
a. Department of Justice
b. Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency
D. Cover-ups and Retribution
1. The Niger Forgeries and the “Sliming” of Ambassador Wilson and his Family
a. Disclosure and Panic
b. Retribution and Damage
c. Delays, Conflicts, and More Lies
2. Other Instances of Bush Administration Retribution Against its Critics
a. Former General Eric Shinseki and Others in the Military
b. Former Secretary of Treasury Paul O’Neill and Economic Adviser Lawrence Lindsey
c. Richard Clarke
d. Cindy Sheehan
e. Jeffrey Kofman
f. International Organizations–the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the IAEA
g. Bunnatine Greenhouse
h. The Central Intelligence Agency and its Employees
3. Ongoing Lies, Deceptions and Manipulations
E. Thwarting Congress and the American Public: The Death of Accountability under the Bush Administration and the Republican-Controlled Congress
Chapter 4. Legal Analysis
Chapter 5. Recommendations
Endnotes
Exhibits
A. Relevant Law and Standards
B. Analysis of Secretary Powell’s February 5, 2003 Statements Before the United Nations
C. House Government Reform Committee, Minority Report; “Iraq on the Record”
D. List of Key Documents

. . . Read more!

posted by LoZo 11:48 AM

 

F.B.I. Spying on Peace, Environmental, & Animal Rights Groups
(Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, December 20, 2005)
Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show. . . . The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities. . . . One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. . . . The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week, came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored. . . . The F.B.I. had previously turned over a small number of documents on antiwar groups, showing the agency's interest in investigating possible anarchist or violent links in connection with antiwar protests and demonstrations in advance of the 2004 political conventions. And earlier this month, the A.C.L.U.'s Colorado chapter released similar documents involving, among other things, people protesting logging practices at a lumber industry gathering in 2002. . . . The latest batch of documents, parts of which the A.C.L.U. plans to release publicly on Tuesday, totals more than 2,300 pages and centers on references in internal files to a handful of groups, including PETA, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group, which promotes antipoverty efforts and social causes. . . . "It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U. . . . "You look at these documents," Ms. Beeson said, "and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology." . . . The documents indicate that in some cases, the F.B.I. has used employees, interns and other confidential informants within groups like PETA and Greenpeace to develop leads on potential criminal activity and has downloaded material from the groups' Web sites, in addition to monitoring their protests. . . . "The fact that we're even mentioned in the F.B.I. files in connection with terrorism is really troubling," said Tom Wetterer, general counsel for Greenpeace. "There's no property damage or physical injury caused in our activities, and under any definition of terrorism, we'd take issue with that." . . . "It's shocking and it's outrageous," Mr. Kerr said. "And to me, it's an abuse of power by the F.B.I. when groups like Greenpeace and PETA are basically being punished for their social activism."

. . . Read more!

posted by LoZo 11:26 AM

 

NSA uses ECHELON to spy on U.S. citizens
(Thomas C Greene, The Register, December 16, 2005)
Who would have believed that twitchy paranoiacs are actually onto something? Incredibly, they are: the New York Times has revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on American citizens. . . . Previously, the Agency had shown itself to be scrupulous about avoiding this sort of activity. But according to numerous un-named sources paraphrased in the Times, the President signed a secret order authorizing him to intercept phone calls and emails from US persons in communication with persons outside the US, and all without the slightest bit of judicial oversight. [COMMENT by Lorenzo: Did you catch that? Our Benevolent Dictator signed an order giving himself the authority to spy on us! This insane, elite cowboy has anointed himself king.] . . . The White House claims that a September, 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing the so-called war on terror gives the President authority to conduct domestic surveillance without a warrant, even though it is forbidden by federal law. Interestingly, the Times says that the spy program was curtailed when it became clear to the Administration that the story was about to come out, which implies something a bit shy of full confidence that the order really was legal.

. . . Read more!

posted by LoZo 12:59 PM

 

Pentagon Caught Spying on Americans
(Lisa Myers, MSNBC, December 13, 2005)
A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military. . . . A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a "threat" and one of more than 1,500 "suspicious incidents" across the country over a recent 10-month period. . . . "This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible," says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project. . . . The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups. . . . "I think Americans should be concerned that the military, in fact, has reached too far," says NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin. . . . The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One "incident" included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald's National Salute to America's Heroes -- a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. . . . The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: "US group exercising constitutional rights." Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in the database were discounted because they had no connection to the Department of Defense -- yet they all remained in the database. . . . Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One DOD briefing document stamped "secret" concludes: "[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the [I]nternet," but no "significant connection" between incidents, such as "reoccurring instigators at protests" or "vehicle descriptions." . . . The increased monitoring disturbs some military observers.

. . . Read more!

posted by LoZo 2:44 AM

 

U.S. Secret Jails: A Flashback to Stalin's Soviet Union
(Aljazeera, 12-12-05)
Recently released documents and news reports revealed that America holds what it calls "terror suspect" in more than two dozen detention centers in various countries all over the world, at least half of which operate in total secrecy, according to a human rights group. . . . "Ending Secret Detentions," a report compiled by the Human Rights First said that secrecy surrounding the detention centres makes "inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely, but inevitable". . . . The BUSH administration holds "prisoners in a secret system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision, accountability, or law," said the rights group director. . . . Some critics of PRESIDENT BUSH described his administration's policies as a flashback to Stalin's Soviet Union. . . . That's how the practices of the world's most powerful and open democracy country are described nowadays. . . . In Congress, allegations of abusing and torturing suspects held in U.S. custody in Iraq, Guantanamo or elsewhere, where the U.S. runs secret jails, set off a fierce debate. . . . Some European experts have already described the detentions centers and jails, the U.S. secretly runs all over the world, as "gulags", network of forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union, where people faced great sufferings. . . . In June, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. compared the U.S. treatment of detainees it holds in Guantanamo Bay to conduct "by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags" or other totalitarian regimes, drawing harsh criticism from the White House and its allies in Congress. . . . Last week, two secret U.S. prisons in Poland and Romania were closed just ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Europe, ABC News reported. . . . After Rice left to Germany Monday, she admitted that the U.S. had flown suspects abroad for interrogation . . . Human Rights Watch identified Poland and Romania as the countries that housed suspects at secret prisons. . . . "The U.S. scrambled to get all the suspects off European soil before Rice arrived," ABC News said, citing current and former CIA officers. . . . CIA's secret prisons have existed since 2002, one was established in Thailand to detain the first top Al Qaeda capture, ABC News said, adding that the approval for another secret prison was approved last year by a North African nation.

. . . Read more!

posted by LoZo 2:03 PM