Watergate II: Bush impeachment process

John Dean (accurately predicted Nixon's Watergate would bring him down) interviewed by Buzzflash, 17 June 2003.

"BUZZFLASH: Could you explain the specific steps that would lead to charges being brought against Bush or anyone in his administration? What sort of evidence would be needed to prove that intelligence data was manipulated or misused? Would it have to be proven that Bush knew he was using lies to lead the American public into war? Would he be let off the hook if an aide said, "I withheld information from the president that he was assuring Americans about information that we knew was likely false, or knew to be a lie?"

DEAN: Some of the most interesting evidence developed so far, which is public, has been largely ignored. It is the work of one of the country's best investigative journalists -- who has not become part of the establishment. I am referring to the work of Sy Hersh in The New Yorker, specifically his essay "Selective Intelligence" in the May 12, 2003 issue [LINK].

Sy presents a powerful case that Rumsfeld's team -- no doubt with Dick Cheney's support -- knew what they wanted and managed to intimidate the rest of the intelligence community into agreeing with them. That they, in effect, had a pre-determined conclusion and simply ignored any and all information that conflicted with their conclusion. Needless to say, this is not intelligence gathering. Hersh's work is precisely the type of information that can start opening up the closed doors. Indeed, Sy has done this before, and his work resulted in the revelatory hearings by the Senate (the Church Committee) and the House (the Pike Committee) during the mid-1970s. Sy doesn't get it wrong very often, and if he does, he will be the first to say so.

Both the House and Senate intelligence committees have scheduled what they are calling "reviews" of the pre-war intelligence. They are going through all the boxes of documents that have been given to them now, and then they will meet with witnesses. Unless the inter-agency/department internecine war between the Defense Department and the CIA, or the Defense Intelligence Agency and Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans erupts before one of these committees, I doubt much will surface. More likely, hard information -- if it exists -- will be uncovered by a reporter like Hersh, who has been digging and has a good source. That, I suspect, will be how any misconduct will be discovered.

To more specifically answer your question, it will take either documentary evidence, like e-mails or memoranda, or sworn testimony, to make a case of misconduct. There also may be recorded telephone conversations, because making such recordings is very common in the intelligence community, and it appears from some of the leaks that there is a good bit of typical bureaucratic "CYA" thinking going on. [Editor's note: CYA refers to "cover your ass."]

What will have to occur is the entire pre-war period will need to be carefully reconstructed: Who said what to whom and when. Then it will be known if there was a deliberate, or improper, manipulation of the pre-war intelligence. Given George Bush's executive style, and the fact that he has no background or experience with national security intelligence, the person I suspect has been guiding Bush through this is Cheney. Indeed, Cheney is to a war like a Dalmatian dog is to a fire: He wouldn't miss it.

I have little doubt that Cheney is the player in the middle of all this intelligence business, but the likelihood of his testifying about it is nil. Dick Cheney is the most secretive man in government, the most powerful, and the most unaccountable with no responsibility other than to give the president behind-the-scenes help. I doubt we will ever know what transpired between Cheney and Bush; therefore, I doubt we will ever know the true story. I am reluctant to speculate further because whether Bush could defend himself by claiming he was not given the information will depend on the facts. We are still very, very early in the efforts to unravel all this. So no one should jump to any conclusions, even if the aroma has a bit of a stench about it."

It is hard not to jump to conclusions when you know what is just and right.

If he gets impeached, which I doubt he will but still, I 'd do a little dance, make a lil love, and basically get down.

If he gets impeached, which I doubt he will but still, I 'd do a little dance, make a lil love, and basically get down.

Oh hell I would throw a party. LOL!!

Bush won't go. Congress would never vote him out. Besides we need a conservative in office in these hard days, not a liberal.

I'll start taking wagers early next month. (In ATS play money, of course).

I nearly fell out of my chair when I read this, people need to stop thinking in terms of liberal or conservative, how about we need some one who is willing to do the right thing for americans?

ROFLMAO

Yeah, Bush needs another Term, thats it!
This time he will make everything so wonderful and keep us safe from those pesky terrorist, all while North Korea says it will rape us with a fork!

we need a conservative in office in these hard days

Lysergic

Leave JediMaster alone, it's important to appreciate human diversity and respect values other than your own.

And it's also important not to upset him, as you may end up with one less humor contributor.

i r teh evil

This time he will make everything so wonderful and keep us safe from those pesky terrorist, all while North Korea says it will rape us with a fork

Forks...I thought they used ChopSticks down thier?...Bloody hell, first they steal our nuclear ideas, now our forks........what next??????
Deep

They've been developing forks secretly, don't you watch the news, sheesh! WMD ALERT! They have admitted to wanting to create their own sporks, America protect your KFC side dishes!

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
Lysergic

Leave JediMaster alone, it's important to appreciate human diversity and respect values other than your own.

And it's also important not to upset him, as you may end up with one less humor contributor.

Well, the liberals would have us send care packages over to al-Qaida, and have our troops fight with pansy instead of guns .

Hey, the Prickly Comedians here to stay .

Originally posted by JediMaster
Bush won't go. Congress would never vote him out. Besides we need a conservative in office in these hard days, not a liberal.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
like father like son!
he is a one term president and it is just about over, yhnank GOD.
if they impeach him as they should Congress will vote him out, because the evidence is overwhelming and and all democrates will be for it and many republicans as he has defied republican ideals for cross over democratic votes [health care and political contributions]. He is merely a pawn and has served his use, he may have one more use left. To engage us in a conflict with Korea.
as far as a liberal president goes we probably do need one in order to restore world wide public opinion. as of now we are the ones that people 'love to hate'
the largest fear should be that Hillary the Witch will run for President. her recent full of bull book was a poll to see how popular she is. apparently there are people out there that will listen to her ranting and raving. christ, if she just gets the Amazon Feminist vote [for which I hold myself personally responsible for] she will be a late show shoe in.
god help us all, Bill will be the First Lady!!!!!

tut tut

Worth recalling how "Watergate 1" actually ended (no charges, no impeachment, pardons, token sentences for the minions) before we get carried away.

Watergate I: Resignation of the President to avoid much of what Estragon raises above.

Unlikely scenario for Dubya, he has no morals and feels sn/mug as a bug in a rug.

Tony Blair is being labelled George Bush's "mine canary".

What happens for Blair, must happen for Bush. Same intelligence warnings, same war decision.

And Blair seems to not have a lot of oxygen left.

news.independent.co.uk...

2 sound points, masked-A; but I cannot help but feel that the "West" has changed massively and., perhaps, irreversibly in the past 20 or so years. Blair isn't a PM as we know the office: it's something new and different in which the media, public indifference, a feeble opposition combine to make a leader effectively beyond the rules that used to obtain. It's much the same with Bush fils.
A veritable flood of untruths, corruption, bad policy, domestic financial disaters and so on has left him entirely unscathed.
It's hard to imagine any existing governmental procedures being effective against the PM's and Presidents of the day: and -as much to the point - as Orwell pointed out, what really matters is ensuring the succession: if a Balir or Bush did step down, they'd have done that before they went.

It seems it wasn't a good day at the office for PM John Coxucker Howard in Oz either. He tried to trot out the long discredited finding of mobile weapons (hydrogen) labs as post-hoc rationalisation and proof of weapons.

www.abc.net.au...

Impeachment doesn't exist in Oz. Only a corrupt, deceitful arsehole puupet/leader.

To me, the dismantling of the powers of the various intlligence agencies to inter-communicate coupled with the deliberate failure to employ them to prevent major damage to national security, AND the actual cooking of intelligence by Cheney's puppet office, are two of the strongest grounds so far to remove 'president' and V-P.

The following is baseline material provided by this well-known website:

www.thefourreasons.org...

0. Operation Iraqi Freedom is illegal within the framework of the laws of the United States Constitution and the United Nations Charter.

1. The war on Iraq has been planned for many years by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an organization founded by a small group of right wing political visionaries and corporate elite dedicated to promoting American global leadership. The PNAC signatories hold the most powerful positions in the current administration and other highly influential political offices. Read their Statement of Principles and note the signatories. Read the PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" for a detail of their strategy for American hegemony.

2. Many members of the Bush Administration are convicted criminals. In 1992, the International War Crimes Tribunal found the senior officers in the first Bush administration guilty on 19 counts of Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and other criminal acts in Violation of the Charter of the United Nations, International Law, The Constitution of the United States and Laws made in Pursuance thereof, for crimes committed during �Operation Desert Storm�. View a list of our `elected' officials, their appointees, and their criminal offenses.

3. There is no degree of separation between the current administration and those who control the means of production, the means of communication, the energy industry, and the military. Those individuals will benefit unfathomably from this and many future wars already planned by the PNAC. View information on who is making the money from our �War on Terrorism�.

4. �We the People� pay for �Operation Iraqi Freedom�, the staging of �multiple theatre wars�, and the killing of the innocent peoples of foreign lands in the name of Freedom and Democracy, while 'elected' officials pass radical legislation taking away our rights and controlling the flow of information.

The problem here is that you'd have to impeach the entire upper level of gov't. They all cover each other's a$$e$. The corruption stems from the most powerful people in our gov't. Everyone below them is to blame for anything that can be found against Bush's regime. They're a bunch of high end liars with an agenda. They're still blaming Clinton for everything.

MA�it warms my heart to see you speaking of impeachment�and quoting Buzzflash interviews nonetheless. Cheers!

There�s only one problem with impeachment. The SOTUS Chief Justice chairs all impeachment proceedings. Enter stage left, Justice Rehnquist. Yes the same Rehnquist that appointed our good king. The deck is already stacked and the game hasn�t even been called. I think a racketeering lawsuit under the RICO laws is better way to go.