Appendix 2, Petition regarding MCA of 2006, "Sanctioning, Tyranny, Torture

Appendix #2 Petition regarding MCA of 2006, "Sanctioning Tyranny, Torture"

Petitioner is including below a brief he’d sent to the Attorney General in April of ‘09 to encourage investigation and prosecution of serious crimes committed by the Bush administration against Congress and the American people. It includes allegations which are easily substantiated. With more effort and time petitioner could substantiate with footnoted documentation that is easily verifiable. There’s an enormous prima facie case that begs for investigation and prosecution by the Department of Justice.

The Attorney General, Eric Holder, had stated that possible illegalities of the Bush administration would be investigated and the law would be enforced. This is right and appropriate for the Constitution calls for equal justice for all, including the rich and powerful. A strong case can be made that VP Dick Cheney and President Bush led a conspiracy of certain members of his administration to commit fraud and perjury with intent to deceive in his State of the Union address on January 28th, 2003 regarding Iraq's acquisition of special aluminum tubing purported to be used in nuclear processing, the purported attempt by Iraq to purchase enriched uranium, the purported possession of huge stocks of WMD, that is, chemical weapons, and the purported "immanent threat" Iraq posed to the United States.

Charges: Violations of 18 USC section 1031, MAJOR FRAUD ACT of 1988, Violations of 18 USC section 1001, FRAUD AND FALSE STATEMENTS Violated, 18 USC Section 1002, POSSESSION of FALSE PAPERS to DEFRAUD the UNITED STATES Violated 18 USC section 371, CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT OFFENSE OR TO DEFRAUD UNITED STATES

Violations of The MAJOR FRAUD ACT of 1988, 18 USC section 1031 : That former US VP Dick Cheney and former President Bush, in collusion with others, did instigate and perpetuate a conspiracy to commit fraud on the people and government of the United States by fraudulently and deceptively manipulating information presented to the public and in a joint session of Congress in a State of the Union address January 28th, 2003 as well as in testimony given to Congress in Congressional hearings both public and private, including accusations known to be dubious or false about Iraqi attempts to procure uranium according to numerous reports including: January 12, 2003 - The State Department INR(bureau of Intelligence and Research) expresses concerns to the CIA that the Iraq-Niger documents are forgeries. (INR memo, p. 3) January 13, 2003 -The chief INR Iraq nuclear analyst circulates an e-mail to intelligence community analysts warning that "the uranium purchase agreement probably is a hoax." (SSCI).

President Bush also claimed in the 2003 State of the Union address that all intelligence agencies had determined that Iraq was trying to purchase aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear centrifuges. He said this despite a January 10, 2003, Senior Executive Memorandum given to Rice, Cheney, and dozens of other high-level Bush administration policy makers on the aluminum tubes issue emphasizing that the INR, DOE and the IAEA all believed that the aluminum tubes procured by Iraq were for conventional weapons, as well as other reports stating that the aluminum tubes in question were probably NOT for nuclear purposes. So, President Bush and others knew or should have known the charges about the aluminum tubes and about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium were false, or at least, misleading.

Former President Bush and his administration was presenting these issues about the purported attempts of uranium purchases and about the purchase of aluminum tubing as supposedly solid proofs that Iraq had an ongoing nuclear program and as reasons to go to war with Iraq, although the record clearly shows that the Bush administration was not at all certain of the veracity of these claims because of reports given to them that both claims were bogus, that is to say very dubious or untrue, and history shows that assessment was correct. However the record seems to show that the Bush administration was determined to bring the US to war with Iraq even if it mean lying to Congress and the American people about these issues and defrauding the US government. The purpose of this conspiracy of fraud was to enrich the Halliburton Corporation, for which Cheney had been CEO and of which he still has vested interest in and enrich, as well as defense contractors and oil companies, chief donors to his election campaigns. President Bush had stated that he wanted to be a war-time President to help push his legislative agenda.

Further below I'll quote extensively from the 7/02 "Downing Street Memo", from a British Cabinet meeting at which British intelligence said, of the Bush administration plans to attack Iraq: "Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."...followed by John Dean's analysis of WMD claims in the 2003 SOTU .

President Bush's infamous 16 words, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," was a disingenuous, misleading statement, and he and his staff knew it. And President Bush repeated the claim that Iraq's Aluminum tubes were for nuclear centrifuges without acknowledging that the INR, DOE and the IAEA all believed that the aluminum tubes procured by Iraq were for conventional weapons, with the intent of terrorizing the American people and US Congress to justify waging war against Iraq. And thereby risking and wasting American blood(some 4,500 US soldiers killed thus far) and treasure(estimated to cost the US $1.5 Trillion) in a pre-emptive war which was not necessary.(No WMD, no eminent threat to US or its allies). Yet Cheney and Bush's friends and donors in defense contractors including Halliburton, a company VP Cheney has vested interest, in benefited tangibly and substantially. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil and Terrorism expert Richard Clarke saw, in the White House, pre-9/11 maps of Iraq with its oil fields divvied up between the oil companies, which reveals a motive for the plot to fraudulently mislead the United States and reveals that it had been developing since at least the beginning days of the Bush administration in the Spring of 2001.

Yet the January 28th, 2003 speech by Bush was a State of the Union address mandated by Article 2, section 3 of the US Constitution, before a joint session of Congress and was accordingly solemnly received and considered worthy and the truthful fulfillment of a Presidential duty. Arguably, President Bush was under his Presidential oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.", as he gave his State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress as well as many millions of Americans and any misstatements or misrepresentations in his 2003 State of the Union address are fraudulent, perjuries and felonious. And especially villainous, as it led to the deaths or maiming of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, innocent civilians as well as soldiers, and the death or maiming of many thousands of US soldiers. In any event, lying to Congress is against the law whether or not one is under oath.

It wasn't until July 9th, 2003, over three months since the war had started, that Presidential spokesman Ari Fleisher acknowledged that "it's now known what was not known by the White House prior to the speech. This information should not have risen to the level of a Presidential speech." Yet as I've delineated above, the White House DID, in fact, know about the dubious nature of the claims about Iraq prior to the State of the Union speech(and there is extensive, documented evidence to prove the White House was made aware of the dubious nature of these claims well before the January 28th, 2003, State of the Union address). The State of the Union speech was given on January 28th and the war started on March 20th, after President Bush warned the UN Inspectors to leave Iraq. There was plenty of time for the administration to stop the headlong rush to war as the truth about the spurious nature of the allegations against Iraq was revealed. Part of the proof that the Bush administration did not care about the veracity of the accusations it made against Iraq in the 2003 State of the Union address is that although there was much public discourse in the months after the President's address about the many reports which revealed the accusations against Iraq therein to be spurious, the Bush administration proceeded relentlessly with the war against Iraq. UN weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq, doing a good and thorough job until the Bush administration warned them to get out before the US bombardment of Iraq began in March of 2003.

Torture was used to fabricate false evidence.
Shaykh al-Libi, is subjected to a series of increasingly harsh techniques http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1209-07.htm , including at least one, waterboarding, that is considered torture. http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=torture,_rendition,_and_other_abuses_against_captives_in_iraq,_afghanistan,_and_elsewhere&startpos=200#amid0302tentechniques
Reputedly, he is finally broken after being waterboarded and then forced to stand naked in a cold cell overnight where he is repeatedly doused with cold water by his captors. In order to avoid harsher treatment he will also provide false information to the Egyptians, alleging that Iraq trained al-Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases. [ABC News, 11/18/2005 http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866 ;
New York Times, 12/9/2005] http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1209-07.htm
New York Times, November 6, 2005 By DOUGLAS JEHL http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/washington/10detain.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=&st=nyt , http://www.newsweek.com/id/196818
(#13b) Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence skepticism regarding Ibn Libi's tortured account, still President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Defense Intelligence Agency document. From 2/2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/politics/06intel.html?pagewanted=print

The deceptions included in the 2003 State of the Union address also violated 18 USC section 1001, FRAUD AND FALSE STATEMENTS in several ways. For instance, lying about non-existent uranium purchases would "falsify, conceal or cover up a material fact" that the purchase never occurred. Lying also obviously violates section 2 of the statute: "makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation". Knowing reliance upon the forged documents would violate section 3 of the statute: "uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry". The letter obtained by Italian intelligence and later by British intelligence that purported to show that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger had long been considered by many to be a crude forgery, yet when same letter came to the attention of British intelligence, some in the White House conspiracy pretended that the forged letter had suddenly acquired credibility and let it be included in the final draft of the 2003 State of the Union address. The claims President Bush made in the 2003 State of the Union address regarding Iraq purchase of aluminum tubes suitable for uranium processing was contrary to what a report from the Department of Energy asserted regarding the tubes. And President Bush claimed UN Inspectors believed Iraq had huge Sock-piles of WMD, which is a complete misrepresentation of United Nations reports Instead, U.N. inspectors expressed doubt, stating they had dismantled Iraq's key weapons-making facilities and destroyed most existing WMD. A September 2002 report by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare production facilities." .........President Bush’s claims regarding alleged Iraq WMDs are analyzed extensively in an article by John Dean further below.

Also violated, of 18 USC Section 1002, POSSESSION of FALSE PAPERS to DEFRAUD the UNITED STATES; for it was known there were doubts about the authenticity of the letter obtained by Italian intelligence regarding Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from Niger. The document was such an obvious forgery that French intelligence dismissed it immediately, however the conspirators, committed to fomenting a war with Iraq saw in it a utility, that it could be used to substantiate their claim that Iraq had an active nuclear program. And in the Fall '02 The British government found out about the documents in question and claimed(apparently without vetting) that it must mean that Iraq has a nuclear program. Also, Bush's statements about Iraq's procurement of high-strength aluminum tubing as proving their use for a nuclear centrifuge without acknowledging that both the Dept. of Energy and the State Dept. as well as the IAEA disagreed with this conclusion was intended to deceive and terrorize the American people and US Congress. Lies contained in the State of the Union address would also violate the federal anti-conspiracy statute, because the lies would come about through the efforts of many people. That statute, 18 USC section 371, CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT OFFENSE OR TO DEFRAUD UNITED STATES criminalizes acts by two or more people who conspire "either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy. . . ." Violations of the federal anti-conspiracy statute are punishable by a fine and imprisonment not to exceed 5 years. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=18&sec=1001

Considering these aforementioned felonies resulted in the serious injury and death of many thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers and civilians, as well as the destruction of many billions of dollars of property, Manslaughter charges(or their federal equivilent) against all of the conspirators are appropriate as well. The message must be loud and clear that before the start of any pre-emptive war the purported threat must be proven solidly very real and very tangible, otherwise the conspiring perpetrators will all be held accountable and responsible. That is why it is very important that Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Feith, Libby and any others who can be proven to have participated in the lies and fraud that led to the invasion of Iraq should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The precedents of the Nuremburg are appropriate for these are war crimes, and no one is above the law. And following orders is no excuse for breaking the law.

Also, Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union Address, falsely implied that U.N. inspectors believed Iraq had large amounts of WMD. Instead, U.N. inspectors expressed doubt, stating they had dismantled Iraq's key weapons-making facilities and destroyed most existing WMD. A September 2002 report by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The document said: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare production facilities." President Bush was informed since the Spring of 2002 during his morning intelligence briefing that U.S. intelligence agencies believed it was unlikely that Saddam was an imminent threat to the United States. However, in the months leading up to the war, Bush, Cheney, and Cabinet members repeatedly asserted that Saddam was likely to use chemical or biological weapons against the United States or to provide such weapons to Al Qaeda or another terrorist group. Still, delivered to Bush in early January 2003, was also a summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, this one focusing on whether Saddam would launch an unprovoked attack on the United States, either directly, or indirectly by working with terrorists. The NIE report stated that U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that it was unlikely that Saddam would try to attack the United States -- except if "ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime. Despite what US intelligence agencies were repeatedly telling President Bush, the Bush administration used the potential threat from Saddam as a major rationale in making the case to go to war. The president cited the threat in an address to the United Nations on September 12, 2002, in an October 7, 2002, speech to the American people, and in his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003.

If we say the pre-war lies don't matter and the country should sweep them under the rug and only focus on the best way out of Iraq, what we're really saying is that the truth itself doesn't matter. If we say we should look away from the fact that thousands of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died for a lie, we're saying the lost lives don't matter, the war-injured and maimed don't matter, America's honor and integrity don't matter.
"The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons, was false, fabricated, exaggerated or phony”. In his State of the Union, Bush repeatedly presented beliefs, estimates and educated guesses as established fact. Genuine facts are truths that can be known or are observable, and the distance between fact and belief is uncertainty, which can be infinite. Authentic facts are not based on hopes or wishes or even probabilities. Now, it is little wonder that none of the purported WMDs have been discovered in Iraq. So egregious and serious are Bush's misrepresentations that they appear to be a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the public." In "Worse Than Watergate", John Dean, former counsel to President Richard Nixon says, "The evidence is overwhelming, certainly sufficient for a prima facie case, that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have engaged in deceit and deception over going to war in Iraq. This is an impeachable offense. Bush lied to Congress at a classified briefing when he claimed Saddam Hussein had biological and chemical weapons and was able to use them via unmanned drone aircraft against the United States." According to Dean, at a congressional leadership meeting on October 3, 2002, Bush falsely claimed Saddam's regime had the ability and materials needed to build nuclear weapons. Dean also notes that Bush deceived Congress in his January 28, 2003 State of the Union address when he falsely claimed Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. Wilson said Bush referred to British intelligence and left out reference to U.S. intelligence, because the CIA had refuted the claim. He adds, "So there was real deception there. This was not just an accident. This was not a slip of the tongue. These were people who wanted to put something in there that was actually deceptive to the U.S. Congress and to the American people.".

Evidence, -The Downing Street Memo Proof Bush Fixed The Facts, by Ray McGovern May 04, 2005 "Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then head of Britain's CIA equivalent, MI-6. Fresh back in London from consultations in Washington, Dearlove briefed Prime Minister Blair and his top national security officials on July 23, 2002, on the Bush administration's plans to make war on Iraq.

In emotionless English, Dearlove tells Blair and the others that President Bush has decided to remove Saddam Hussein by launching a war that is to be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction." Period. What about the intelligence? Dearlove adds matter-of-factly, "The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

At this point, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw confirms that Bush has decided on war, but notes that stitching together justification would be a challenge, since "the case was thin." Straw noted that Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.In the following months, "the case" would be buttressed by a well-honed U.S.-U.K. intelligence-turned-propaganda-machine. The argument would be made "solid" enough to win endorsement from Congress and Parliament by conjuring up:Aluminum artillery tubes misdiagnosed as nuclear related; Forgeries alleging Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa; Tall tales from a drunken defector about mobile biological weapons laboratories; Bogus warnings that Iraqi forces could fire WMD-tipped missiles within 45 minutes of an order to do so; Dodgy dossiers fabricated in London; and A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate thrown in for good measure.

All this, as Dearlove notes dryly, despite the fact that "there was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." Another nugget from Dearlove's briefing is his bloodless comment that one of the U.S. military options under discussion involved "a continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi "casus belli"—the clear implication being that planners of the air campaign would also see to it that an appropriate casus belli was orchestrated.

The discussion at 10 Downing St. on July 23, 2002 calls to mind the first meeting of George W. Bush's National Security Council (NSC) on Jan. 30, 2001, at which the president made it clear that toppling Saddam Hussein sat atop his to-do list, according to then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil, who was there. The intelligence was not simply mistaken; it was manufactured, with the president of the United States awarding foreman George Tenet the Medal of Freedom for his role in helping supervise the deceit. The British documents make clear that this was not a mere case of "leaning forward" in analyzing the intelligence, but rather mass deception—an order of magnitude more serious. No other conclusion is now possible.Small wonder, then, to learn from CIA insiders like former case officer Lindsay Moran that Tenet's malleable managers told their minions, "Let's face it. The president wants us to go to war, and our job is to give him a reason to do it."Small wonder that, when the only U.S. analyst who met with the alcoholic Iraqi defector appropriately codenamed "Curveball" raised strong doubt about Curveball's reliability before then-Secretary of State Colin Powell used the fabrication about "mobile biological weapons trailers" before the United Nations, the analyst got this e-mail reply from his CIA supervisor: "Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about."

When Tenet's successor, Porter Goss, took over as director late last year, he immediately wrote a memo to all employees explaining the "rules of the road"—first and foremost, "We support the administration and its policies." So much for objective intelligence insulated from policy pressure.Tenet and Goss, creatures of the intensely politicized environment of Congress, brought with them a radically new ethos—one much more akin to that of Blair's courtiers than to that of earlier CIA directors who had the courage to speak truth to power.

Seldom does one have documentary evidence that intelligence chiefs chose to cooperate in both fabricating and "sexing up" (as the British press puts it) intelligence to justify a prior decision for war. There is no word to describe the reaction of honest intelligence professionals to the corruption of our profession on a matter of such consequence. "Outrage" does not come close. If persons with access to wrongly concealed facts and analyses bring them to light, the chances become less that a president could launch another unprovoked war—against, say, Iran.

Within: A Special Prosecutor Should be Appointed to Investigate Bush Administration Misrepresentations About Iraq by John Dean July 28, 2003

The heart of President Bush's January 28 State of the Union address was his case for going to war against Saddam Hussein. In making his case, the president laid out fact after fact about Saddam's alleged unconventional weapons. Indeed, the claim that these weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed an imminent threat was his primary argument in favor of war.

Now, as more and more time passes with WMD still not found, it seems that some of those facts may not have been true. In particular, recent controversy has focused on the president's citations of British intelligence purportedly showing that Saddam was seeking "significant quantities of uranium from Africa." In this column, I will examine the publicly available evidence relating to this and other statements in the State of the Union concerning Saddam's WMD. Obviously I do not have access to the classified information the president doubtlessly relied upon. But much of the relevant information he drew from appears to have been declassified and made available for inquiring minds.

What I found in critically examining Bush's evidence is not pretty. The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons, was false, fabricated, exaggerated or phony.

In his State of the Union, Bush repeatedly presented beliefs, estimates and educated guesses as established fact. Genuine facts are truths that can be known or are observable, and the distance between fact and belief is uncertainty, which can be infinite. Authentic facts are not based on hopes or wishes or even probabilities. Now, it is little wonder that none of the purported WMDs have been discovered in Iraq.

So egregious and serious are Bush's misrepresentations that they appear to be a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the public. So arrogant and secretive is the Bush White House that only a special prosecutor can effectively answer and address these troubling matters. Since the Independent Counsel statute has expired, the burden is on President Bush to appoint a special prosecutor -- and if he fails to do so, he should be held accountable by Congress and the public.

In making this observation, I realize that some Republicans will pound the patriotism drum, claiming that anyone who questions Bush's call to arms is politicizing the Iraqi war. But I have no interest in partisan politics, only good government -- which is in serious trouble when we stop debating these issues, or absurdly accuse those who do of treason.

As Ohio's Republican Senator Robert A. Taft, a man whose patriotism cannot be questioned, remarked less than two weeks after Pearl Harbor, "[C]riticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.... [T]he maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country... more good than it will do the enemy [who might draw comfort from it], and it will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur." It is in that sprit that I address Bush's troubling assertions.




A Closer Look At Bush's Facts in the State of the Union
Bush offered eight purported facts as the gist of his case for war. It appears he presented what was believed to be the strongest evidence first:

Purported Bush Fact 1: "The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons materials sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it." Source: Bush cites the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) 1999 Report to the U.N. Security Council. But most all the report's numbers are estimates, in which UNSCOM had varying degrees of confidence.

In addition, UNSCOM did not specifically make the claim that Bush attributes to it. Instead, the report only mentions precursor materials ("growth media") that might be used to develop anthrax. One must make a number of additional assumptions to produce the "over 25,000 liters of anthrax" the president claimed. Earlier the same month, in a January 23 document, the State Department similarly cited the UNSCOM report, although noticeably more accurately than the president: "The U.N. Special Commission concluded that Iraq did not verifiably account for, at a minimum, 2160 kg of growth media. This is enough to produce 26,000 liters of anthrax." State does not explain how it projected a thousand liters more than the president.

And two days after the State of the Union, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage addressed the UNSCOM estimates in a more truthful light: as a reference to the "biological agent that U.N. inspectors believe Iraq produced."
It short, in the State of the Union, the president transformed UNSCOM estimates, guesses and approximations into a declaration of exact amounts, which is a deception. He did the same with his statement about botulinum toxin.

Purported Bush Fact 2: "The Union Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hasn't accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it." Source: Bush cited the same UNSCOM Report. Again, he transformed estimates, or best guesses -- based on the work of the UNSCOM inspectors and informants of uncertain reliability -- into solid fact. His own State Department more accurately referred to the same information as "belief," not fact: "Iraq declared 19,000 liters (of Botulinum toxin) [but the] U.N. believes it could have produced more than double that amount." (Emphasis added.)

Purported Bush Fact 3: "Our intelligence sources estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents also could kill untold thousands. He has not accounted for these materials." Source: Here, at least Bush admits that he is drawing upon estimates -- but this time he leaves out other qualifiers that would have signaled the uncertainty his own "intelligence sources" felt about these purported facts. In October 2002, a CIA report claimed that Iraq "has begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, cyclosarin and VX." Bush omitted the "probably." The CIA also added still more caveats: "More than 10 years after the Gulf war, gaps in Iraqi accounting and current production capabilities strongly suggest that Iraq maintains a stockpile of chemical agents, probably VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard."
Bush, his speechwriters and his advisers left all these caveats out. How could they have? Did they not think anyone would notice the deceptions?

Purported Bush Fact 4:
"U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them."
Source: Bush cites "U.S. intelligence" for this information, but it appears to have first come from UNSCOM. If so, he seems to have doubled the number of existing munitions that might be, as he argued, "capable of delivering chemical agents." UNSCOM's report, in its declassified portions, suggests that UNSCOM "supervised the destruction of nearly 40,000 Chemical munitions (including rockets, artillery and Aerial bombs, 28,000 of which were filled)." And UNSCOM's best estimate was that there were 15,000 -- not 30,000 -- artillery shells unaccounted for. The CIA's October 2002 report also acknowledges that "UNSCOM supervised the destruction of more than 40,000 chemical munitions." Yet none of its declassified documents support Bush's contention in the State of the Union that 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons remain unaccounted for. Where did Bush's number come from? Was it real -- or invented?

Purported Bush Fact 5: "From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them." Source: The three informants have still not been identified -- even though the administration now has the opportunity to offer asylum to them and their families, and then to disclose their identities, or at least enough identifying information for the public to know that they actually exist, and see why the government was prone to believe them. Moreover, there is serious controversy as to whether the mobile weapons labs have been found. After the war, the CIA vigorously claimed two such labs had been located. But Iraqi scientists say the labs' purpose was to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. And many months later, no other Iraqi scientists -- or others with reason to know -- have been found to contradict their claims. Meanwhile, the State Department has publicly disputed the CIA (and DIA) claim that such weapons labs have been found. All informant intelligence is questionable. Based on this intelligence, the president should have said that "we believe" that such labs existed -- not that "we know" that they do. "Belief" opens up the possibility we could be wrong; claimed "knowledge" does not. As with his other State of the Union statements, the president presented belief as fact and projected a certainty that seems to have been entirely unjustified -- a certainty on the basis of which many Americans, trusting their president, supported the war.

Purported Bush Fact 6: "The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb." Source: The IAEA did provide some information to this effect, but the IAEA's own source was Iraq itself. According to Garry B. Dillon, the 1997-99 head of IAEA's Iraq inspection team, Iraq was begrudgingly cooperating with UNSCOM and IAEA inspections until August 1998. Moreover, a crucial qualifier was left out: Whatever the program looked like in the early or mid-1990s, by 1998, the IAEA was confident it was utterly ineffective. As the IAEA's Dillon further reports, as of 1998, "there were no indications of Iraq having achieved its program goals of producing a nuclear weapon; nor were there any indications that there remained in Iraq any physical capability for production of amounts of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance." Later, IAEA's own January 20, 2003 Update Report to the UN's Security Council reiterated the very same information Dillon had reported. It is deceptive to report Iraq's 1990's effort at a nuclear program without also reporting that -- according to a highly reliable source, the IAEA -- that attempt had come to nothing as of 1998. It is even more deceptive to leave this information out and then to go on -- as Bush did -- to suggest that Iraq's purportedly successful nuclear program was now searching for uranium, implying it was operational when it was not. In making this claim, Bush included his now discredited 16-word claim.
Purported Bush Fact 7: "The British government has learned Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Source: Media accounts have shown that the uranium story was untrue -- and that at least some in the Bush administration knew it. I will not reiterate all of the relevant news reports here, but I will highlight a few. The vice president's office had questions about the Niger uranium story. Ambassador Wilson was dispatched to learn the truth and found it was counterfeit information. Wilson advised the CIA and State Department that the Niger documents were forgeries, and presumably the vice president learned these facts. The Niger uranium story was reportedly removed from Bush's prior October 7, 2002 speech because it was believed unreliable -- and it certainly became no more reliable thereafter. Indeed, only days after Bush's State of the Union, Colin Powell refused to use the information in his United Nation's speech because he did not believe it to be reliable. Either Bush's senior advisers were aware of this hoax, or there was a frightening breakdown at the National Security Council -- which is designed to avoid such breakdowns. Neither should be the case. In fact, it is unconscionable, under the circumstances, that the uranium fabrication was included in the State of the Union. And equally weak, if not also fake, was Bush's final point about Saddam's unconventional weapons.

Purported Bush Fact 8: "Our intelligence sources tell us that [Saddam Hussein] has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Source: Bush is apparently referring to the CIA's October 2002 report -- but again, qualifiers were left out, to transform a statement of belief into one of purported fact. The CIA report stated that "Iraq's aggressive attempts to obtain proscribed high-strength aluminum tubes are of significant concern. All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program. Most intelligence specialists assess this to be the intended use, but some believe that these tubes are probably intended for conventional weapons programs." By January 20, 2003 the IAEA -- which has more expertise than the CIA in the matter -- had completed its investigation in Iraq of the aluminum tubes. It concluded that, as the Iraqi government claimed, the tubes had nothing to do with nuclear weapons, rather they were part of their rocket program. Thus, eight days before Bush's State of the Union, the IAEA stated in its report to the Security Council, "The IAEA's analysis to date indicates that the specifications of the aluminum tubes recently sought by Iraq appear to be consistent with reverse engineering of rockets. While it would be possible to modify such tubes for the manufacture of centrifuges, they are not directly suitable for such use." In short, Bush claimed the tubes were "suitable for nuclear weapons production" when only a week earlier, the IAEA -- which had reason to know -- plainly said that they were not. Today, of course, with no nuclear facilities found, it is clear that the evidence that the IAEA provided was correct.
Bush's Stonewalling And The Polk Precedent Bush closed his WMD argument with these words: "Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide." The he added, "The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving." Unfortunately, it seems that Bush may have been deceiving too. Urgent and unanswered questions surround each of the eight statements I have set forth. Questions surrounding the uranium story are only indicative, for similar questions must be asked about the other statements as well. But so far, only the uranium claim has been acknowledged as a statement the president should not have made. Nonetheless, the White House had been stonewalling countless obvious and pressing questions, such as: When did Bush learn the uranium story was false, or questionable? Why did he not advise Congress until forced to do so? Who in the Bush White House continued to insist on the story's inclusion in the State of the Union address? Was Vice President Cheney involved? Who got the CIA to accept the British intelligence report when they had doubts about it? Bush is not the first president to make false statements to Congress when taking the nation to war. President Polk lied the nation into war with Mexico so he could acquire California as part of his Manifest Destiny. It was young Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln who called for a Congressional investigation of Polk's warmongering. Lincoln accused Polk of "employing every artifice to work round, befog and cover up" the reasons for war with Mexico. Lincoln said he was "fully convinced, of what I more than suspect already, that [Polk] is deeply conscious of being wrong." In the end, after taking the president to task, the House of Representatives passed a resolution stating that the war with Mexico had been "unnecessary and unconstitutionally commenced by the president." Not unlike Polk, Bush is currently hanging onto a very weak legal thread -- claiming his statement about the Niger uranium was technically correct because he said he was relying on the British report. But that makes little difference: If Bush knew the British statement was likely wrong, then he knowingly made a false statement to Congress. One can't hide behind a source one invokes knowing it doesn't hold water. Because Bush has more problems than his deceptive statement about Niger uranium, Congressman Lincoln's statement to Polk echoes through history with particular relevance for Bush: "Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with facts and not with arguments.... Let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation."

It Is A Crime To Make False Statements To Congress Could Bush and his aides be stonewalling because it is a crime to give false information to Congress? It wasn't a crime in President Polk's day. Today, it is a felony under the false statements statute. This 1934 provision makes it a serious offense to give a false information to Congress. It is little used, but has been actively available since 1955. That year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in U.S. v. Bramblet, that the statute could be used to prosecute a Congressman who made a false statement to the Clerk of the Disbursing Office of the House of Representatives, for Congress comes under the term "department" as used in the statutes. Two members of the Bush administration, Admiral John Poindexter and Elliot Abrams, learned about this false statements law the hard way, during the Iran Contra investigation. Abrams pled guilty to two misdemeanors for false statements to Congress, as did Robert McFarlane. (Both were subsequently pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.) Poindexter and Oliver North fought the charges, and won on an unrelated legal technicality. Later, one of Robert McFarlane's lawyers, Peter W. Morgan, wrote a law journal article about using the false statements statute to prosecute executive officials appearing before Congress. Morgan was troubled by the breadth of the law. It does not require a specific intent to deceive the Congress. It does not require that statements be written or that they be sworn. Congress is aware of the law's breadth and has chosen not to change it. Maybe presciently, Morgan noted that the false statements statute even reaches "misrepresentations in a president's State of the Union address." To which I would add, a criminal conspiracy to mislead Congress, which involved others at the Bush White House, could also be prosecuted under a separate statute, which makes it a felony to conspire to defraud the government.

Need for A Special Prosecutor To Investigate the WMD Claims There is an unsavory stench about Bush's claims to the Congress and the nation about Saddam Hussein's WMD threat. The deceptions are too apparent. There are simply too many unanswered questions, which have been growing daily. If the Independent Counsel law were still in existence, this situation would justify the appointment of an Independent Counsel. Because that law has expired, if President Bush truly has nothing to hide, he should appoint a special prosecutor. After all, Presidents Nixon and Clinton, when not subject to the Independent Counsel law, appointed special prosecutors to investigate matters much less serious. If President Bush is truly the square shooter he portrays himself to be, he should appoint a special prosecutor to undertake an investigation. Ideally, the investigation ought to be concluded -- and the issue cleared up -- well before the 2004 election, so voters know the character of the men (and women) they may or may not be re-electing. Family, loved ones and friends of those who have died, and continue to die, in Iraq deserve no less. John Dean is the former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon and author of The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court. This commentary first appeared on FindLaw.com (www.findlaw.com) on July 18, 2003.
BBC, January, 2004 -Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said Mr Bush was looking for an excuse to oust Saddam Hussein. As a member of the president's National Security team he said he never saw any evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. In his interview, Mr O'Neill said the Bush administration appeared to have assumed the right to act as it wished abroad. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the US has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap," he said. He was also highly critical of Mr Bush's tax cuts policy. The author of the new book, Ron Suskind, told CBS that he had received documents from Mr O'Neill and others which showed that during Mr Bush's first 100 days in office his officials were already looking at military options to remove Saddam from power.60 Minutes 7 min - Aug 23, 2007 - War plans were in the works, long BEFORE the 911 World Trade Center attack. ... EXPOSED: Bush Planned on Invading Iraq Before 9/11-Part 2 ...www.youtube.com/watch?v=inyCkCvqRO0The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill (Paperback) by Ron Suskind (AuthorNot only did O'Neill give Suskind his time, he gave him 19,000 internal documents. “Everything's there: Memoranda to the President, handwritten "thank you" notes, 100-page documents. Stuff that's sensitive,” says Suskind, adding that in some cases, it included transcripts of private, high-level National Security Council meetings. “You don’t get higher than that.” And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations. “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11. Based on his interviews with O'Neill and several other officials at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up Iraq's oil wealth. He obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," which includes a map of potential areas for exploration.

Richard Clarke, a Reagan appointee and registered Republican who was the top official of counter-terrorism activities for the Bush Administration, served as a first hand witness to the plans of George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld to invade Iraq, even without any reason to believe that Iraq posed any significant threat to the United States. According to Clarke, "The crisis was manufactured, and Bush political adviser Karl Rove was telling Republicans to 'run on the war." Apparently, the day after September 11, 2001, when it was already clear that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks, Donald Rumsfeld proposed bombing Iraq instead of Afghanistan simply because Iraq had more targets that would be easy to bomb. Rumsfeld, supported by Bush, continued to push for an invasion of Iraq in spite of information from the CIA, FBI and Richard Clarke himself that Iraq had done nothing to contribute to any attacks against America.

Clarke revealed that just days after George W. Bush came into office, he sent a memo labeled "urgent" to National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, asking for a cabinet-level meeting to discuss the serious danger that Al Quaida posed to the United States. Bush Administration officials did not bother holding such a meeting until one week before September 11, 2001. When Richard Clarke tried to get the Bush Administration to hold high level meetings about the threat posed by Osama Bin Laden, his requests were rejected, and Bush appointees such as Paul Wolfowitz insisted that Al Quaida was not a serious enough threat to merit their attention. These Bush Administration officials criticized President Clinton for focusing too much on the threat from Al Quaida. So, in what proved to be a fatal lapse in judgment, the Bush Administration relaxed the campaign to counter Bin Laden. This lapse would be repeated later, when Bush took resources from the hunt for Bin Laden in order to invade Iraq.Clarke further comments that George W. Bush pressured him and other intelligence officials to create an official report linking Iraq and Al Quaida. When Clarke's report clearly stated that Iraq had no relationship with Al Quaida, he was told that his report had the "wrong answer" and that he should come back with a new report. Clarke says that all the intelligence Bush had told him that Iraq "did nothing to threaten us." Yet, Bush chose to ignore this intelligence.

Clarke served as a first hand witness to the plans of George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld to invade Iraq, even without any reason to believe that Iraq posed any significant threat to the United States. According to Clarke, "The crisis was manufactured, and Bush political adviser Karl Rove was telling Republicans to 'run on the war." Apparently, the day after September 11, 2001, when it was already clear that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks, Donald Rumsfeld proposed bombing Iraq instead of Afghanistan simply because Iraq had more targets that would be easy to bomb. Rumsfeld, supported by Bush, continued to push for an invasion of Iraq in spite of information from the CIA, FBI and Richard Clarke himself that Iraq had done nothing to contribute to any attacks against America.

It's become clear that the Bush Administration knew very well that Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism in general, and nothing to do with Al Quaida in particular. It's become clear that George W. Bush was desperate to attack Iraq even before he became president, and that the weapons of mass destruction lies were nothing more than a bad excuse for another, hidden agenda. It's become clear that George W. Bush and his top aides knowingly made inaccurate statements, and intentionally ignored the advice of the FBI, CIA and other intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies. Attorney General Eric Holder had stated that possible illegalities of the Bush administration would be investigated and the law would be enforced. A strong case can be made that President Bush led a conspiracy of certain members of his administration to commit fraud and perjury with intent to deceive in his State of the Union address on January 28th, 2003 regarding Iraq's acquisition of special aluminum tubing purported to be used in nuclear processing, the purported attempt by Iraq to purchase enriched uranium, and the purported "immanent threat" Iraq posed to the United States. One of Robert McFarlane's lawyers, Peter W. Morgan, wrote a law journal article about using the false statements statute to prosecute executive officials appearing before Congress. Morgan was troubled by the breadth of the law. It does not require a specific intent to deceive the Congress. It does not require that statements be written or that they be sworn. Congress is aware of the law's breadth and has chosen not to change it.

Maybe presciently, Morgan noted that the false statements statute even reaches "misrepresentations in a president's State of the Union address." To which I would add, a criminal conspiracy to mislead Congress, which involved others at the Bush White House, could also be prosecuted under a separate statute, which makes it a felony to conspire to defraud the government.The State of the Union IS a presidential duty. In fact, it says so in the Constitution:Article 2, Section 3 Duties of the President:"He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union..." Committing fraud and deceit to Congress and the American people, while performing one of the few explicitly enumerated duties of the president, in order to build support for a war on false pretenses is perjuries and criminal. Consider the phrase: "I do solemnly swear to faithfully execute the duties..." part of the swearing in ceremony...) Yes, he was under oath, it was the Oath of Office. The State of the Union is an officially assigned constitutional duty of the President. Given that fact, I'd say it has as much weight as any affidavit or sworn testimony. In any event , lying to Congress is against the law whether or not one is under oath.

Former Treasury Secretary O'Neil and Terrorism advisor Clarke have both testified that President Bush and his administration were pre-occupied with plans to invade Iraq since the very first days of the Bush administration in January of 2001. They were witnessing the conspiracy of the Bush administration to lead the United States into a war with Iraq. Ambassador Wilson, who had been tasked to find evidence that Iraq had made efforts to purchase uranium from Niger, reported in February of 2002 that this hadn't happened. http://www.nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0302nj1.htm The first report, delivered to Bush in early October 2002, was a one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate that discussed whether Saddam's procurement of high-strength aluminum tubes was for the purpose of developing a nuclear weapon. Among other things, the report stated that the Energy Department and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research believed that the tubes were "intended for conventional weapons," a view disagreeing with that of other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, which believed that the tubes were intended for a nuclear bomb.
The disclosure that Bush was informed of the DOE and State dissents is the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies.
When U.S. inspectors entered Iraq after the fall of Saddam's regime, they determined that Iraq's nuclear program had been dormant for more than a decade and that the aluminum tubes had been used only for artillery shells. The second classified report, delivered to Bush in early January 2003, was also a summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, this one focusing on whether Saddam would launch an unprovoked attack on the United States, either directly, or indirectly by working with terrorists. The report stated that U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that it was unlikely that Saddam would try to attack the United States -- except if "ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime" or if he intended to "extract revenge" for such an assault, according to records and sources.

The single dissent in the report again came from State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, known as INR, which believed that the Iraqi leader was "unlikely to conduct clandestine attacks against the U.S. homeland even if [his] regime's demise is imminent" as the result of a U.S. invasion.

On at least four earlier occasions, beginning in the spring of 2002, according to the same records and sources, the president was informed during his morning intelligence briefing that U.S. intelligence agencies believed it was unlikely that Saddam was an imminent threat to the United States.

However, in the months leading up to the war, Bush, Cheney, and Cabinet members repeatedly asserted that Saddam was likely to use chemical or biological weapons against the United States or to provide such weapons to Al Qaeda or another terrorist group. The Bush administration used the potential threat from Saddam as a major rationale in making the case to go to war. The president cited the threat in an address to the United Nations on September 12, 2002, in an October 7, 2002, speech to the American people, and in his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003. On numerous other occasions, Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and then-U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte cited Iraq's procurement of aluminum tubes without disclosing that the intelligence community was split as to their end use. The fact that the president was informed of the dissents by Energy and State is also significant because Rice and other administration officials have said that Bush did not know about those dissenting views when he made claims about the purported uses for the tubes.
The one-page October 2002 President's Summary specifically told Bush that although "most agencies judge" that the use of the aluminum tubes was "related to a uranium enrichment effort... INR and DOE believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons uses." the one-page summary, several senior government officials said in interviews, was written specifically for Bush, was handed to the president by then-CIA Director George Tenet, and was read in Tenet's presence.

In addition, Rice, Cheney, and dozens of other high-level Bush administration policy makers received a highly classified intelligence assessment, known as a Senior Executive Memorandum, on the aluminum tubes issue. Circulated on January 10, 2003, the memo was titled "Questions on Why Iraq Is Procuring Aluminum Tubes and What the IAEA Has Found to Date."

The paper included discussion regarding the fact that the INR, Energy, and the United Nations atomic energy watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, all believed that Iraq was using the aluminum tubes for conventional weapons programs. The lengthier NIE also contained a note regarding the aluminum tubes disagreement:

"In INR's view, Iraq's efforts to acquire aluminum tubes is central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, but INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors. INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose. "INR considers it far more likely that the tubes are intended for another purpose, most likely the production of artillery rockets."

Iraq's alleged uranium shopping had been strongly disputed in the intelligence community from the start. In a closed Senate hearing in late September 2002, shortly before the October NIE was completed, then-director of central intelligence George J. Tenet and his top weapons analyst, Robert Walpole, expressed strong doubts about the uranium story, which had recently been unveiled publicly by the British government. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, likewise, called the claim "highly dubious." For those reasons, the uranium story was relegated to a brief inside passage in the October estimate. But the White House Iraq Group, formed in August 2002 to foster "public education" about Iraq's "grave and gathering danger" to the United States, repeatedly pitched the uranium story. The alleged procurement was a minor issue for most U.S. analysts -- the hard part for Iraq would be enriching uranium, not obtaining the ore, and Niger's controlled market made it an unlikely seller -- but the Niger story proved irresistible to speechwriters. Most nuclear arguments were highly technical, but the public could easily grasp the link between uranium and a bomb. ****(Tenet interceded to keep the claim out of a speech Bush gave in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, but by Dec. 19 it reappeared in a State Department "fact sheet." After that, the Pentagon asked for an authoritative judgment from the National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community. Did Iraq and Niger discuss a uranium sale, or not? If they had, the Pentagon would need to reconsider its ties with Niger.

The council's reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest.***January 12 The State Department INR(bureau of intelligence and Research) expresses concerns to the CIA that the Iraq-Niger documents are forgeries. (INR memo, p. 3) January 13 The chief INR Iraq nuclear analyst circulates an e-mail to intelligence community analysts warning that "the uranium purchase agreement probably is a hoax." (SSCI) January 22 or 26 (approx.)WINPAC director Alan Foley and NSC staffer Robert Joseph talk about State of the Union speech drafting over the phone. Foley objects to the uranium claim and says it should be taken out. Joseph is insistent on keeping it in. Joseph proposes attributing the information to the British. Foley agrees to this. (SCSI; Time; emptywheel). (Note: accounts of this event are conflicting, as are estimated dates). before January 28 The National Intelligence Council sends and the White House receives an unequivocal memo, drafted by Robert G. Houdek, the national intelligence officer for Africa, that the Niger story is baseless and should be laid to rest. (WaPo, DailyKos) January 28 The 16 words are spoken by the President in the State of the Union address (transcript; SSCI). "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." January 29Joseph Wilson meets with a friend who works at the State Department and asks why the president had cited the British intelligence report about Iraq's attempt to buy uranium, when he had debunked the allegation a year earlier. (NYT) the Bush administration steadfastly continued to refuse to declassify the President's Summary of the NIE, which in the words of one senior official, is the "one document which illustrates what the president knew and when he knew it." The administration also refused to furnish copies of the paper to congressional intelligence committees. That a summary was also prepared for Bush on the question of Saddam's intentions regarding an unprovoked attack on the United States is significant because the administration has claimed that the president was unaware of intelligence information that conflicted with his public statements and those of the vice president and members of his Cabinet on the justifications for attacking Iraq. According to interviews and records, Bush personally read the one-page summary in Tenet's presence during the morning intelligence briefing, and the two spoke about it at some length. Sources familiar with the summary said it was highly significant that the president was informed that it was the unanimous conclusion of the intelligence agencies participating in the production of the January 2003 NIE that Saddam was unlikely to consider attacking the U.S. unless Iraq was attacked first. In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address, the president once again warned the nation: "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option." http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/06/07/downing_street_memo/index.html -notes from a British cabinet meeting

The Downing Street memo"The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy, ... and there was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

Should be Appointed to Investigate Bush Administration Misrepresentations About Iraq by John Dean July 28, 2003 The heart of President Bush's January 28 State of the Union address was his case for going to war against Saddam Hussein. In making his case, the these weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed an imminent threat was his primary argument in favor of war. Now, as more and more time passes with WMD still not found, it seems that some of those facts may not have been true. In particular, recent contpresident laid out fact after fact about Saddam's alleged unconventional weapons. Indeed, the claim that roversy has focused on the president's citations of British intelligence purportedly showing that Saddam was seeking "significant quantities of uranium from Africa." In this column, I will examine the publicly available evidence relating to this and other statements in the State of the Union concerning Saddam's WMD. Obviously I do not have access to the classified information the president doubtlessly relied upon. But much of the relevant information he drew from appears to have been declassified and made available for inquiring minds. What I found in critically examining Bush's evidence is not pretty. The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons, was false, fabricated, exaggerated or phony. In his State of the Union, Bush repeatedly presented beliefs, estimates and educated guesses as established fact. Genuine facts are truths that can be known or are observable, and the distance between fact and belief is uncertainty, which can be infinite. Authentic facts are not based on hopes or wishes or even probabilities. Now, it is little wonder that none of the purported WMDs have been discovered in Iraq. So egregious and serious are Bush's misrepresentations that they appear to be a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the public. So arrogant and secretive is the Bush White House that only a special prosecutor can effectively answer and address these troubling matters. Since the Independent Counsel statute has expired, the burden is on President Bush to appoint a special prosecutor -- and if he fails to do so, he should be held accountable by Congress and the public. In making this observation, I realize that some Republicans will pound the patriotism drum, claiming that anyone who questions Bush's call to arms is politicizing the Iraqi war. But I have no interest in partisan politics, only good government -- which is in serious trouble when we stop debating these issues, or absurdly accuse those who do of treason. As Ohio's Republican Senator Robert A. Taft, a man whose patriotism cannot be questioned, remarked less than two weeks after Pearl Harbor, "[C]riticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.... [T]he maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country... more good than it will do the enemy [who might draw comfort from it], and it will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur." It is in that sprit that I address Bush's troubling assertions.Moreover, there is serious controversy as to whether the mobile weapons labs have been found. After the war, the CIA vigorously claimed two such labs had been located. But Iraqi scientists say the labs' purpose was to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. And many months later, no other Iraqi scientists -- or others with reason to know -- have been found to contradict their claims. Meanwhile, the State Department has publicly disputed the CIA (and DIA) claim that such weapons labs have been found. All informant intelligence is questionable. Based on this intelligence, the president should have said that "we believe" that such labs existed -- not that "we know" that they do. "Belief" opens up the possibility we could be wrong; claimed "knowledge" does not. As with his other State of the Union statements, the president presented belief as fact and projected a certainty that seems to have been entirely unjustified -- a certainty on the basis of which many Americans, trusting their president, supported the war.Purported Bush Fact 6: "The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb." Source: The IAEA did provide some information to this effect, but the IAEA's own source was Iraq itself. According to Garry B. Dillon, the 1997-99 head of IAEA's Iraq inspection team, Iraq was begrudgingly cooperating with UNSCOM and IAEA inspections until August 1998. Moreover, a crucial qualifier was left out: Whatever the program looked like in the early or mid-1990s, by 1998, the IAEA was confident it was utterly ineffective. As the IAEA's Dillon further reports, as of 1998, "there were no indications of Iraq having achieved its program goals of producing a nuclear weapon; nor were there any indications that there remained in Iraq any physical capability for production of amounts of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance." (Emphases added) Later, IAEA's own January 20, 2003 Update Report to the UN's Security Council reiterated the very same information Dillon had reported. It is deceptive to report Iraq's 1990's effort at a nuclear program without also reporting that -- according to a highly reliable source, the IAEA -- that attempt had come to nothing as of 1998. It is even more deceptive to leave this information out and then to go on -- as Bush did -- to suggest that Iraq's purportedly successful nuclear program was now searching for uranium, implying it was operational when it was not. In making this claim, Bush included his now discredited 16-word claim. Purported Bush Fact 7: "The British government has learned Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Source: Media accounts have shown that the uranium story was untrue -- and that at least some in the Bush administration knew it. I will not reiterate all of the relevant news reports here, but I will highlight a few. The vice president's office had questions about the Niger uranium story. Ambassador Wilson was dispatched to learn the truth and found it was counterfeit information. Wilson advised the CIA and State Department that the Niger documents were forgeries, and presumably the vice president learned these facts. The Niger uranium story was reportedly removed from Bush's prior October 7, 2002 speech because it was believed unreliable -- and it certainly became no more reliable thereafter. Indeed, only days after Bush's State of the Union, Colin Powell refused to use the information in his United Nation's speech because he did not believe it to be reliable. Either Bush's senior advisers were aware of this hoax, or there was a frightening breakdown at the National Security Council -- which is designed to avoid such breakdowns. Neither should be the case. In fact, it is unconscionable, under the circumstances, that the uranium fabrication was included in the State of the Union. And equally weak, if not also fake, was Bush's final point about Saddam's unconventional weapons. Purported Bush Fact 8: "Our intelligence sources tell us that [Saddam Hussein] has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Source: Bush is apparently referring to the CIA's October 2002 report -- but again, qualifiers were left out, to transform a statement of belief into one of purported fact. The CIA report stated that "Iraq's aggressive attempts to obtain proscribed high-strength aluminum tubes are of significant concern. All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program. Most intelligence specialists assess this to be the intended use, but some believe that these tubes are probably intended for conventional weapons programs." (Emphases added). By January 20, 2003 the IAEA -- which has more expertise than the CIA in the matter -- had completed its investigation in Iraq of the aluminum tubes. It concluded that, as the Iraqi government claimed, the tubes had nothing to do with nuclear weapons, rather they were part of their rocket program. Thus, eight days before Bush's State of the Union, the IAEA stated in its report to the Security Council, "The IAEA's analysis to date indicates that the specifications of the aluminum tubes recently sought by Iraq appear to be consistent with reverse engineering of rockets. While it would be possible to modify such tubes for the manufacture of centrifuges, they are not directly suitable for such use." In short, Bush claimed the tubes were "suitable for nuclear weapons production" when only a week earlier, the IAEA -- which had reason to know -- plainly said that they were not. Today, of course, with no nuclear facilities found, it is clear that the evidence that the IAEA provided was correct.Bush's Stonewalling And The Polk Precedent Bush closed his WMD argument with these words: "Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide." The he added, "The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving." Unfortunately, it seems that Bush may have been deceiving too. Urgent and unanswered questions surround each of the eight statements I have set forth. Questions surrounding the uranium story are only indicative, for similar questions must be asked about the other statements as well. But so far, only the uranium claim has been acknowledged as a statement the president should not have made. Nonetheless, the White House had been stonewalling countless obvious and pressing questions, such as: When did Bush learn the uranium story was false, or questionable? Why did he not advise Congress until forced to do so? Who in the Bush White House continued to insist on the story's inclusion in the State of the Union address? Was Vice President Cheney involved? Who got the CIA to accept the British intelligence report when they had doubts about it? Bush is not the first president to make false statements to Congress when taking the nation to war. President Polk lied the nation into war with Mexico so he could acquire California as part of his Manifest Destiny. It was young Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln who called for a Congressional investigation of Polk's warmongering. Lincoln accused Polk of "employing every artifice to work round, befog and cover up" the reasons for war with Mexico. Lincoln said he was "fully convinced, of what I more than suspect already, that [Polk] is deeply conscious of being wrong." In the end, after taking the president to task, the House of Representatives passed a resolution stating that the war with Mexico had been "unnecessary and unconstitutionally commenced by the president." Not unlike Polk, Bush is currently hanging onto a very weak legal thread -- claiming his statement about the Niger uranium was technically correct because he said he was relying on the British report. But that makes little difference: If Bush knew the British statement was likely wrong, then he knowingly made a false statement to Congress. One can't hide behind a source one invokes knowing it doesn't hold water. Because Bush has more problems than his deceptive statement about Niger uranium, Congressman Lincoln's statement to Polk echoes through history with particular relevance for Bush: "Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with facts and not with arguments.... Let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation." It Is A Crime To Make False Statements To Congress Could Bush and his aides be stonewalling because it is a crime to give false information to Congress? It wasn't a crime in President Polk's day. Today, it is a felony under the false statements statute. This 1934 provision makes it a serious offense to give a false information to Congress. It is little used, but has been actively available since 1955. That year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in U.S. v. Bramblet, that the statute could be used to prosecute a Congressman who made a false statement to the Clerk of the Disbursing Office of the House of Representatives, for Congress comes under the term "department" as used in the statutes. Two members of the Bush administration, Admiral John Poindexter and Elliot Abrams, learned about this false statements law the hard way, during the Iran Contra investigation. Abrams pled guilty to two misdemeanors for false statements to Congress, as did Robert McFarlane. (Both were subsequently pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.) Poindexter and Oliver North fought the charges, and won on an unrelated legal technicality. Later, one of Robert McFarlane's lawyers, Peter W. Morgan, wrote a law journal article about using the false statements statute to prosecute executive officials appearing before Congress. Morgan was troubled by the breadth of the law. It does not require a specific intent to deceive the Congress. It does not require that statements be written or that they be sworn. Congress is aware of the law's breadth and has chosen not to change it. Maybe presciently, Morgan noted that the false statements statute even reaches "misrepresentations in a president's State of the Union address." To which I would add, a criminal conspiracy to mislead Congress, which involved others at the Bush White House, could also be prosecuted under a separate statute, which makes it a felony to conspire to defraud the government.Need for A Special Prosecutor To Investigate the WMD Claims There is an unsavory stench about Bush's claims to the Congress and the nation about Saddam Hussein's WMD threat. The deceptions are too apparent. There are simply too many unanswered questions, which have been growing daily. If the Independent Counsel law were still in existence, this situation would justify the appointment of an Independent Counsel. Because that law has expired, if President Bush truly has nothing to hide, he should appoint a special prosecutor. After all, Presidents Nixon and Clinton, when not subject to the Independent Counsel law, appointed special prosecutors to investigate matters much less serious. If President Bush is truly the square shooter he portrays himself to be, he should appoint a special prosecutor to undertake an investigation. Ideally, the investigation ought to be concluded -- and the issue cleared up -- well before the 2004 election, so voters know the character of the men (and women) they may or may not be re-electing. Family, loved ones and friends of those who have died, and continue to die, in Iraq deserve no less. The author thanks Richard Leone for the quote from Senator Taft, which is drawn from his newly-released work The War On Our Freedoms. He also thanks Professor Stanley I. Kutler for the quote of Congressman Lincoln demanding that President Polk answer without evasion or equivocation. John Dean is the former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon and author of The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court. This commentary first appeared on FindLaw.com (www.findlaw.com) on July 18, 2003. .

.