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From: John N. Kessler <[email protected]>
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Subject: CONGRESS SHOULD BEGIN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY OF BUSH AND CHENEY
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Nader: Iraq an Unconstitutional, Illegal War

Based on Five Falsehoods:
 CONGRESS SHOULD BEGIN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY OF BUSH AND CHENEY

"All public policy should revolve around the principle that individuals
are responsible for what they say and do." -- George W. Bush, 1994.

Washington, DC:
 Building on his call for the impeachment of President
 Bush and Vice President Cheney, Independent Presidential candidate Ralph
 Nader today is calling on Members of the House of Representatives to
 begin an impeachment inquiry to investigate two distinct impeachable
 offenses.

An Impeachment Inquiry is the first step toward considering Articles of
Impeachment. During an Impeachment Inquiry the House would investigate
whether there are potential impeachable offenses.

Impeachment Inquiry and the Process of Impeachment

 While the Constitution is clear in granting the impeachment power to the
 House, it leaves the development of mechanisms for exercising the power
 to the House. As noted by the Association of the Bar of the City of New
 York in "The Law of Presidential Impeachment By the Committee on Federal
 Legislation" (see: http://www.abcny.org/presimpt.htm):

   "A variety of methods have been employed to institute impeachment
   proceedings: Charges may be made orally on the floor by a Member of the
   House; a Member may submit a written statement of charges; one or more
   Members of the House may offer a resolution and place it in the
   legislative hopper; a presidential message to the House may initiate
   proceedings. The House has also received charges from a state
   legislature, from a territory, and from a grand jury. Finally, there may
   be a report of a committee of the House which may submit facts or
   charges that will lead to impeachment. Under the rules governing the
   order of business in the House a direct proposition to impeach is a
   matter of highest privilege and supersedes other business. Similar
   privileged treatment is given to propositions relating to a pending
   impeachment."

 The purpose of the Impeachment Inquiry is to have a Committee develop a
 report for the House which then can be considered for the purpose of
 determining whether to proceed with impeachment proceedings. The House
 determines whether to impeach based on a majority vote. It is important
 to remember that impeachment does not mean conviction - that is left to
 the Senate. Impeachment is the equivalent of an indictment, making
 formal charges, which the Senate then considers. Conviction requires
 two-thirds of the Members present in the Senate to vote for conviction.

Two Potential Articles of Impeachment that Should be Part of an Impeachment Inquiry

The Impeachment Inquiry should focus on two areas involving President
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The unconstitutional war in Iraq.

 "The Inquiry should examine whether President Bush and Vice President
 Cheney have gone beyond the bounds of the Constitution, defied the rule
 of law, and if so, whether impeachment is the appropriate constitutional
 punishment," said Nader. The United States Congress never voted for the
 Iraq war. Congress voted for a resolution in October 2002 which
 unlawfully transferred to the President the decision-making power of
 whether to launch a first-strike invasion of Iraq. The United States
 Constitution's War Powers Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11) vests
 the power of deciding whether to send the nation into war solely in the
 United States Congress. This can only be changed by a constitutional
 amendment.

 "Our founders had seen what could occur when the power to declare war
 was vested in one person, a King or a Queen, so they took clear steps to
 ensure no one person could declare war for the United States. As James
 Madison wrote: "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be
 found, than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace
 to the legislature, and not to the executive department," noted Nader.

Five Falsehoods that Led to the Iraq Quagmire:

 Making matters worse in this situation, the illegal first-strike
 invasion and occupation of Iraq was justified by five falsehoods. Nader
 calls for a second area for Impeachment Inquiry to examine: the "five
 falsehoods that led to war." In 1994 George W. Bush said: "All public
 policy should revolve around the principle that individuals are
 responsible for what they say and do." In 2000, he ran as the
 "responsibility " candidate. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of
 national security intelligence data, if proven, would be "a high crime"
 under the Constitution's impeachment clause. Article II, Section 4 of
 the Constitution provides: "The President, Vice President and all civil
 Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on
 Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high
 Crimes and Misdemeanors."

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

 The weapons have still not been found. Nader emphasized, "Until the 1991
 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was our government's anti-communist ally in the
 Middle East. We also used him to keep Iran at bay. In so doing, in the
 1980s under Reagan and the first Bush, corporations were licensed by the
 Department of Commerce to export the materials for chemical and
 biological weapons that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick
 Cheney later accused him of having." Those weapons were destroyed after
 the Gulf War. President Bush's favorite chief weapons inspector, David
 Kay, after returning from Iraq and leading a large team of inspectors
 and spending nearly half a billion dollars told the president :We were
 wrong."

           See: David Kay testimony before Senate Armed Services Committee,
                January 28, 2004.

IRAQ TIES TO AL QAEDA:

 The White House made this claim even though the CIA and FBI repeatedly
 told the Administration that there was no tie between Saddam Hussein and
 Al Qaeda. They were mortal enemies - one secular, the other
 fundamentalist.

SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS A THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES:

 In fact, Saddam was a tottering dictator, with an antiquated, fractured
 army of low morale and with Kurdish enemies in Northern Iraq and Shiite
 adversaries in the South of Iraq. He did not even control the air space
 over most of Iraq.

SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS A THREAT TO HIS NEIGHBORS:

 In fact, Iraq was surrounded by countries with far superior military
 forces. Turkey, Iran and Israel were all capable of obliterating any
 aggressive move by the Iraqi dictator.

THE LIBERATION OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE:

 There are brutal dictators throughout the world, many supported over the
 years by Washington, whose people need "liberation " from their leaders.
 This is not a persuasive argument since for Iraq, it's about oil. In
 fact, the occupation of Iraq by the United States is a magnet for
 increasing violence, anarchy and insurrection.

Nader urges the Congress to investigate the illegal nature of the war,
and how the five falsehoods became part of the Bush Administration's
drum beat for war, in a formal Inquiry of Impeachment.

--

For further information, contact:
Kevin Zeese
1-202-265-4000

--
that the PKK smuggles 80 percent of the
heroin in Paris." Cilluffo is Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime
Program Counterterrorism Task Force at Washington, D.C.'s Center for
Strategic and International Studies.

This same testimony reveals the Nepal Communist Party, ".turned to drug
trafficking for funding. Nepal serves as a hub for hashish trafficking in
Asia." The CIA Fact Book lists Nepal as a major source for heroin from
Southeast Asia to the West.

The South Asia Terrorism Portal wrote of the Nepal Communist Party: "The
Maoists (Nepal) draw inspiration from the 'Revolutionary International
Movement', among whose affiliate is the American Revolutionary Communist
Party that provides them their ideological sustenance. Observers have
noticed striking similarities in the policies and guerilla tactics adopted
by the Maoists and those of the Shining Path of Peru.. Maoist violence has
already cost Nepal several hundred lives and destruction of property worth
millions of rupees. In 1996, the year the insurgency commenced, 82 people
were killed. This figure included insurgents, security forces, personnel and
civilians. During the next year, total killings came down by half - 38
people died. The following year, in 1998, after the Maoists intensified
their program of violence, 408 people were killed - nearly an elevenfold
increase in the number of deaths over the previous year. Ever since, the
death toll has been on the rise. By late 2000 the death toll has risen to
over 2,100. As of August 2002, nearly 5,000 lives have been lo