Making a case for impeachment

[babylonsister]

I wish I could post the whole article-it's worth reading.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/22415

Making a case for impeachment
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2007-05-12 07:54. Impeachment

By John Kaminski, Maine Times Record

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Considerable evidence demonstrates that the decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein's government was made by the summer of 2002. The Downing Street memorandum, prepared by the head of Britain's intelligence service after a secret Washington meeting, revealed that the "intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy" of invading Iraq.

The American public and the Congress were the target of a very emotional and high-stakes sales pitch. The president, the vice president and administration officials spoke repeatedly of the grave threat posed by Iraq's alleged links to Al-Qaeda, and its possession of weapons of mass destruction, even evoking images of a mushroom cloud.

We now know that the intelligence upon which the administration's claims were based was neither solid nor credible in the eyes of professional analysts who were not influenced by the intense pressure applied by the White House.

These actions constitute not simply lying to Congress (which is itself a crime), and, quite possibly, a conspiracy to defraud the United States (also a crime), but abuse of power of the most extreme and serious kind, directly threatening the integrity of our constitutional system and the rule of law.

In addition, the commencement of such an unprovoked war violates the U.N. Charter and the Nuremberg Charter, both treaties adopted by the U.S. The consequences have been horrific on an unprecedented scale: loss of countless American and Iraqi lives, tens of thousands wounded, the suffering of millions of Iraqi civilians, and a cost of over $500 billion.

Another prominent example of the conduct demanding impeachment is the administration's illegal domestic surveillance program. The National Security Agency conducted a domestic wiretapping program from 2001-2006 without procuring any warrants in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA"). This is a direct violation of a law enacted to prevent abuses of power and protect constitutional rights to be free of improper government surveillance.

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