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 Quagmi

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

Matt Ahearn

1-201-314-9747

--
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 lost to the
insurgency "

Shining Path sent congratulations to RIM for its first anniversary in May of
1985. The Central Committee wrote, "...the people's war in our country
continues to blaze defiantly, expanding, spreading its roots and preparing
for newer and higher tasks, guided always by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism,
battling for the emancipation of our people for the purpose of and at the
service of the world revolution. Thus we are contributing and will
contribute to the tasks of the RIM, more and more willing and able to aid in
every possible way our glorious common cause: the emancipation of the
proletariat and communism prevailing though out the earth.

"Comrades, the Communist Party of Peru is part of the Revolutionary
Internationalist Movement and feels honored to be so, honored to serve in
such a far-reaching and historic vanguard battle, as well as to have the
comrades in arms found in our Movement's ranks; and furthermore, the Party
feels fortified and augmented by the repeated expressions of support, of
proletarian internationalism, which it receives from the very outstanding
fraternal communist parties and organizations, and very especially from the
Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement to which we extend
our revolutionary gratitude for its constant encouragement and support. All
this, comrades, increases our proletarian internationalist responsibility
and our unshakeable commitment to the world revolution and its concrete form
today, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement."

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