Could We Coverup Watergate Today? And Twice On Sundays?

Could We Coverup Watergate Today? And Twice On Sundays?
By Paul Rosenberg | Open Left

The death of Mark Felt (AKA "Deep Throat") has Former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie, Jr., wondering "Could We Uncover Watergate Today?"

Over at Dkos, LithiumCola notes that Downie had been "executive editor of the Post from 1991 (after Ben Bradlee stepped down) to earlier this year, when he retired. Downie therefore held Bradlee's post for most of the Bush Administration. A point which makes his column in Sunday's edition of the Post particularly mystifying, or maddening, at any rate revealing."

LithiumCola goes on to note:

The recently retired executive editor of the Washington Post is musing about what "would" happen if a "story such as Watergate" were to emerge once again.

A wild hypothetical, to be sure.

It put me in mind of an article I wrote for Random Lengths News back in June of 2006, constituting "a conservative list of 25 reasons to impeach President Bush." For by now, one thing, at least, should be blazingly clear: the entire Washington establishment was in on this particular crime spree, every last step of the way.

25 Reasons to Impeach
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor

"Legally, there are no significant differences between the investor fraud perpetrated by Enron CEO Ken Lay and the prewar intelligence fraud perpetrated by George W. Bush. Both involved persons in authority who used half-truths and recklessly false statements to manipulate people who trusted them."
-Former Federal Prosecutor Elizabeth Del Vega

With little fanfare, polls over the past year have found support for censuring or impeaching President Bush for various offenses ranging as high as the 40s to the low 50s-despite a virtual media blackout, leaving most Americans woefully ignorant of the scope of lawbreaking involved. Yet, the only official investigation concluded, "These charges appear to be more serious than the articles of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 against then President Nixon".

That conclusion comes from the "Conyers Report" by the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff, "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution and Cover-ups in the Iraq War." The 273-page report did not take into account the illegal NSA spying program, or a number of possible "high crimes and misdemeanors" raised by others outside of government.

The Conyers Report grew out of frustrated attempts to get the Administration to respond to questions raised by the Downing Street Memo-minutes of a British War Cabinet meeting revealing that the Bush Administration had decided to invade Iraq at least 10 months before the invasion, and five months before Congress authorized military force. Despite Republican stonewalling, and lack of subpoena power, the report was amassed with considerable evidence, and concluded:

"There is little doubt that the allegations of misconduct set forth in this Report - misleading Congress and the American public concerning the decision to go to war; misstating and manipulating the intelligence to justify a preemptive war; encouraging and countenancing torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; covering up wrongdoing and retaliating against administration critics - rise to the level of 'Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors' within the meaning of Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution."

The report "also found that there is at least a prima facie case that these actions... violate a number of federal laws," which fell into seven categories: (1) Fraud Against the United States (2) False Statements to Congress (3) the War Powers Resolution (4) Misuse of Government Funds (5) federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and maltreatment, (6) federal laws regarding retaliation against witnesses and whistleblowers, (7) federal laws and regulations regarding leaking and other misuse of intelligence information.

The reasons listed below are not exhaustive. Most could be charged as multiple items, and would be in a criminal case, thus reaching into the hundreds. In addition, we have not listed several major items still requiring investigation to establish basic facts of culpability--most notably, failure to take reasonable steps to prevent 9/11 and the destruction of New Orleans, failure to investigate the role of allies (particularly Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) in 9/11, and interference with the FBI investigation of 9/11 (hurriedly removing bin Laden family members from the US.)

Here, then, is a conservative list of 25 reasons to impeach President Bush:

A. Fraudulent War. Bush decided to invade Iraq-which had no relationship to 9/11-within weeks of the terrorists attack, a position that was fully realized by the British War Cabinet by the time of its meeting on May 23, 2002. Bush committed multiple counts of fraud-in violation of in 18 U.S.C. ß 371-in the process of bringing the nation to war. Each deception is a separate crime (actually involving multiple criminal acts) and a separate reason to impeach:

1. He and those working for him fraudulently lead the American Congress and people to believe that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from Niger.

2. He and those working for him fraudulently lead the American Congress and people to believe that Iraq was involved in 9/11.

3. He and those working for him fraudulently lead the American Congress and people to believe that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes that could only be intended for refining uranium to make nuclear weapons.

4. He and those working for him fraudulently lead the American Congress and People to believe that Iraq and Al Qaeda had a cooperative relationship in alliance against the US.

5. He and those working for him fraudulently lead the American Congress and People to believe that Iraq possessed WMDs.

6. He and those working for him fraudulently lead the American Congress and People to believe that Iraq possessed mobile weapons labs.

7. He and those working for him fraudulently lead the American Congress and People to believe that Iraq possessed ultralight planes to attack the US.

8. Under his authority, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld established the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon-staffed with ideologues, rather than trained analysts-to circumvent professional CIA analysts and pass on unreliable information as "fact" in order to take us to war on fraudulent grounds.

9. He secured the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) from Congress under the fraudulent pretence that he desired peace, and wanted the authority only for the purposes of being able to pressure Saddam Hussein to allow full and complete inspections, so as destroy all WMDs.

10. He invaded Iraq under the fraudulent pretence it was necessary to destroy WMDs that the weapons inspectors could not find.

B. Additional counts related to the Iraq War:

11. He first threatened and then invaded Iraq without justification, as Iraq had not attacked the US first, and posed no danger of doing so. This violated the UN Charter provisions against threatening and making war against another nation, thus violating US law as well.

12. He invaded Iraq without a declaration of war from Congress, thus violating Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, giving Congress, not the President, power to declare war.

13. He began intensified bombing of Iraq in August, 2002, as part of an undeclared war, months before even securing the AUMF. This violated the US Constitution, the UN Charter and the War Powers Resolution, Pub. L. No. 93-148.

14. In July, 2002, he approved 30 projects, eventually totaling $700 million appropriated to fight in Afghanistan, to begin preparations for war against Iraq. This violated the Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, giving Congress the power of the purse, and laws prohibiting the Misuse of Government Funds, 31 U.S.C. ß 1301.

15. Under his command, the U.S. Military used White Phosphorus [WP], an incendiary weapon, in combat, although the U.S. Battle Book states, "It is against the Law of Land Warfare to employ WP against personnel targets." This violates the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the War Crimes Act.

16. Under his authority, the identity of CIA Agent Valerie Plame was leaked in retaliation for her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, revealing evidence that Iraq had not sought uranium from Niger. At minimum, this involved Misuse of Government Funds in violation of 31 U.S.C. ß 1301 by Bush's subordinates, and Bush's own violation of Executive Order 12958, requiring corrective action for leaks of classified information.

17. Under his authority, retribution has been sought against other critics or dissenters-such as Bunnatine Greenhouse, Chief Contracting Officer of the Army Corps of Engineers, and Army Chief of Staff General Erik Shinseki. Some of these actions constitute violations of law, including the Whistleblowers Protection Act, 5 U.S.C. ß 2302; Obstruction of Congress, 18 U.S.C. ß 1505; the Lloyd-La Follette Act, 5 U.S.C. ß 7211; Retaliating Against Witnesses, 18 U.S.C. ß 1513; and Misuse of Government Funds, 31 U.S.C. ß 1301.

C. Additional counts related to the "War on Terror":

18. Under his authority, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld bears responsibility for torture and other illegal conduct in Iraq in violation of the Anti-Torture Statute.

19. Under his authority, Attorneys General Ashcroft and Gonzales violated the Convention Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment (requiring frameworks to deter and punish torture and other human rights violations) and the Geneva and Hague Convention (requiring investigations for such violations).

20. Under his authority, then Attorney General Ashcroft and then White House Counsel Gonzales bear responsibility for documented, unlawful removal of detainees from Iraq in violation of the War Crimes Act.

21. Under his command, Canadian citizen Maher Arar was illegally arrested in the US (JFK airport) and sent to secret prison in Syria for ten months of torture and interrogation. An unknown number of others have been similarly seized and sent to countries that use torture to extract information.

22. Under his command, Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen, was kidnapped in Macedonia, flown to a CIA cite in Afghanistan and tortured, drugged and interrogated for five months. The US later said it made a mistake in detaining him. An unknown number of others have been similarly treated.

23. Under his authority, the National Security Agency (NSA) conducted sweeping warrantless wiretaps in violation of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Fourth Amendment, despite the fact that Congress had offered additional amendments to FISA and the Administration had said they were not needed.

D. Additional Counts:

24. Under his authority, there has been a widespread corruption of the scientific advisory process, substituting personal opinion for objective fact-similar to the corruption of intelligence leading to the Iraq War. This constitutes fraud against the United States and misuse of government funds.

25. Under his authority, Medicare actuary, Richard Foster, was threatened with loss of his job if he shared his cost estimate of $600 billion for the Medicare Drug Benefit with Congress-an estimate substantially higher than the Administration's $400 billion. This constitutes fraud against the people of the United States.

This is what it looks like when the entire political class goes into a permanent state of collective criminality. This is what happened to France before the French Revolution. And we all know how that ended. Our political leadership is, quite literally, playing with fire, and have been for longer than most of us can seem to remember. Stealing the 2000 election actually came much more toward the middle of it all than the beginning. But no one knows where it will end. We only know that we'll be lucky if it all ends with less than several hundred thousand dead, and our living standards closer to the First World than the Third, even by just a hair.

Oh yes. And with something still left in the way of the polar ice caps.

The odds do not look good from where I stand.