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Article III
MISLEADING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO BELIEVE IRAQ
POSSESSED WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, SO AS TO MANUFACTURE A FALSE
CASE FOR WAR
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional
oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability,
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional
duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed",
has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President,
executed instead a calculated and wide-ranging strategy to deceive the citizens and Congress of the
United States into believing that the nation of Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in order to
justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to
our national security interests, thereby interfering with and obstructing Congress's lawful functions of
overseeing foreign affairs and declaring war.
The means used to implement this deception were and continue to be personally making, or causing,
authorizing and allowing to be made through highly-placed subordinates, including the President's
Chief of Staff, the White House Press Secretary and other White House spokespersons, the Secretaries
of State and Defense, the National Security Advisor, and their deputies and spokespersons, false and
fraudulent representations to the citizens of the United States and Congress regarding Iraq's alleged
possession of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons that were half-true, literally true but
misleading, and/or made without a reasonable basis and with reckless indifference to their truth, as well
as omitting to state facts necessary to present an accurate picture of the truth as follows:
(A) Long before the March 19, 2003 invasion of Iraq, a wealth of intelligence informed the President
and those under his direction and control that Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons had
been destroyed well before 1998 and that there was little, if any, credible intelligence that showed
otherwise. As reported in the Washington Post in March of 2003, in 1995, Saddam Hussein's son-inlaw
Hussein Kamel had informed U.S. and British intelligence officers that "all weapons—biological,
chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed." In September 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency
issued a report that concluded: "A substantial amount of Iraq's chemical warfare agents, precursors,
munitions and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation
Desert Storm and UNSCOM actions…here is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing
and stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has-or will-establish its chemical warfare agent
production facilities." Notwithstanding the absence of evidence proving that such stockpiles existed
and in direct contradiction to substantial evidence that showed they did not exist, the President and his
subordinates and agents made numerous false representations claiming with certainty that Iraq
possessed chemical and biological weapons that it was developing to use to attack the United States, to
wit:
(1) "he notion of a Saddam Hussein with his great oil wealth, with his inventory that he already has
of biological and chemical weapons . . . is, I think, a frightening proposition for anybody who thinks
about it." Statement of Vice President Cheney on CBS's Face the Nation, March 24, 2002.
(2) "In defiance of the United Nations, Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is
rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons." Speech of President Bush, October 5,
2002.
(3) "All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified to
spray biological agents over wide areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on
unmanned aerial vehicles with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV
launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland." Statement by
President Bush from the White House, February 6, 2003.
(B) Despite overwhelming intelligence in the form of statements and reports filed by and on behalf of
the CIA, the State Department and the IAEA, among others, which indicated that the claim was untrue,
the President, and those under his direction and control, made numerous representations claiming and
implying through misleading language that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Niger in
order to falsely buttress its argument that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program,
including:
(1) ""The regime has the scientists and facilities to build nuclear weapons, and is seeking the materials
needed to do so." Statement of President Bush from White House, October 2, 2002.
(2) "The report also failed to deal with issues which have arisen since 1998, including: . .
attempts to acquire uranium and the means to enrich it." Letter from President Bush to Vice President
Cheney and the Senate, January 20, 2003.
(3) "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of
uranium from Africa ." President Bush Delivers State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003.
(C) Despite overwhelming evidence in the form of reports by nuclear weapons experts from the
Energy, the Defense and State Departments, as well from outside and international agencies which
assessed that aluminum tubes the Iraqis were purchasing were not suitable for nuclear centrifuge use
and were, on the contrary, identical to ones used in rockets already being manufactured by the Iraqis,
the President, and those under his direction and control, persisted in making numerous false and
fraudulent representations implying and stating explicitly that the Iraqis were purchasing the tubes for
use in a nuclear weapons program, to wit:
(1) "We do know that there have been shipments going . . . into Iraq . . . of aluminum tubes that really
are only suited to -- high-quality aluminum tools that are only really suited for nuclear weapons
programs, centrifuge programs." Statement of then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on
CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, September 8, 2002.
(2) "Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes
suitable for nuclear weapons production." President Bush's State of the Union Address, January 28,
2003.
(3) "e has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11
different countries, even after inspections resumed. …By now, just about everyone has heard of these
tubes and we all know that there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes
are for. Most US experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich
uranium." Speech of Former Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations, February 5, 2003.
(D) The President, both personally and acting through those under his direction and control, suppressed
material information, selectively declassified information for the improper purposes of retaliating
against a whistleblower and presenting a misleading picture of the alleged threat from Iraq, facilitated
the exposure of the identity of a covert CIA operative and thereafter not only failed to investigate the
improper leaks of classified information from within his administration, but also failed to cooperate
with an investigation into possible federal violations resulting from this activity and, finally, entirely
undermined the prosecution by commuting the sentence of Lewis Libby citing false and insubstantial
grounds, all in an effort to prevent Congress and the citizens of the United States from discovering the
fraudulent nature of the President's claimed justifications for the invasion of Iraq.
(E) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq
By U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information, which was released on
June 5, 2008, concluded that:
(1) "Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the
intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing."
(2) "The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD
facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply
buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information."
(3) Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Jay Rockefeller concluded: "In making the case for
war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated,
contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat
from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."
The President has subverted the national security interests of the United States by setting the stage for
the loss of more than 4000 United States service members and the injury to tens of thousands of US
soldiers; the loss of more than 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi citizens since the United States invasion; the
loss of approximately $500 billion in war costs which has increased our Federal debt with a long term
financial cost of between three and five trillion dollars; the loss of military readiness within the United
States Armed Services due to overextension, the lack of training and lack of equipment; the loss of
United States credibility in world affairs; and the decades of likely blowback created by the invasion of
Iraq.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his
trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the
prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting
removal from office.
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