John Dean of FindLaw.com on Is Lying About the Reason for War an Impeachable Offense?
President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake – acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away – unless, perhaps, they start another war.
That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.
To hear the Administration sell this war over the last 9 months or so, you would have thought we'd practically be tripping over barrels of mustard gas on the road to Baghdad. Clearly, that wasn't the case. Many Americans have died and are still dying over this issue. At the very least, Congress must demand some form of accountability should no legitimate evidence of a massive NBC program be found. Further, they are as much to blame as the Administration for sitting idly by and doing almost nothing during the rush to war.
Old rusty trailers with no traces of chemical or biological agents seem to fail the test. I want to see the barrels and tanks full of toxins. I want Colin Powell to show me the money. Now.
Link courtesy of Veterans for Common Sense.