Close Guantánamo Now
• Reject Bush’s Lying as a Principle: Hold Bush
and Rumsfeld Accountable for Torture
• Afghan Prisoners Tortured to Death by U.S.
• Judge Orders Release of Torture Photos
• Torture at Prison Camp: UN Demands Right to Visit Guantánamo
For Your Information
• Guantánamo Detainees: The International Legal
Framework
• Guantánamo and Beyond: The Continuing Pursuit of Unchecked
Executive Power
Impeach War Criminal Bush
• Families of Dead Soldiers Demand Truth from Bush • We Have Seen Enough to Impeach Bush
Reject Bush’s Lying as a Principle
Hold Bush and Rumsfeld Accountable for Torture
The facts, including videos, photographs and testimony from prisoners and soldiers, continue to confirm that torture is widespread and continuing at the U.S. concentration camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and other U.S. prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The International Committee of the Red Cross has confirmed it. The United Nations, denied entry to the Guantánamo camp, stated publicly that it also has reliable reports confirming it. Amnesty International has recently produced in-depth reports on Guantánamo addressing the torture and the violent U.S. attack on all laws and standards of humanity that its concentration camp at Guantánamo represents.
President George W. Bush has responded to these facts by reasserting his well-known lie that the U.S. is treating its prisoners humanely. The Office of the President has also gone on the offensive by claiming those providing the facts are liars. In this manner the effort is being made to impose that the only source of truth is the Office of the President.
Vice-president Dick Cheney, for example, said “For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just do not take them seriously.” Cheney and Bush say reports from the detainees who have been released also are not valid. Cheney said, “If you trace those [reports] back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who has been inside and been released to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated.” President Bush said, “It seemed like [Amnesty] based some of their decisions on the word and allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people who had been trained in some instances to disassemble (sic) — that means not to tell the truth.”
President Bush upholds lying as a principle of leadership, as can be seen in this situation and the many lies, still being repeated, about the Iraq war. This lying necessarily includes calling all others who challenge the president liars. As part of their lying, Bush and Cheney are also stepping up their targeting of any who go against them as “America haters,” deserving of punishment.
In addition to the broad and growing anti-war movement that has long denounced U.S. torture and lies, those calling for the closure of Guantánamo include former President Jimmy Carter, Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Republican Senator Mel Martinez of Florida.
Cheney targeted those calling for closure saying, “My personal view of it is that those who are most urgently advocating that we shut down Guantánamo probably do not agree with our policies anyway.”
Bush and Cheney are pushing the very dangerous outlook that the views of those who “do not agree” with their policies, whether it be the majority of the public or Congresspeople, have no place in public discourse and are to be dismissed. People testifying to U.S. crimes are also to be dismissed as liars and whenever necessary punished as “America haters.” In this manner, only the view of those in power, known to be self-serving liars and war criminals, is to be permitted. This is an openly fascist stand and a necessary part of the ideological offensive of the ruling circles now being waged to convince people to accept a government guilty of crimes and tyranny.
The leadership being demanded in these times is leadership where words and deeds are one and it is principles that are upheld, not lies. It is the leadership that holds government accountable and holds itself accountable to organize to defend the rights of the people, not smash them. The ruling class is out to prevent any such leadership from gaining strength and their promotion of lying as a principle is an integral part of this.
The just demands of the people to close Guantánamo and hold Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and top military officials accountable for the crimes of torture and on-going crimes against humanity reflect this drive to uphold principles and to strenghthen all leadership that does the same.
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Afghan Prisoners Tortured to Death by U.S.
The U.S. prison at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan is estimated to have more than 300 prisoners. At least two of the prisoners were tortured to death in 2002. It has not been reported how many have been killed since then. The military has officially admitted that 28 people have been murdered by the military while in custody.
The military coroner for one of the Afghan men tortured to death said the man’s legs “had basically been pulpified…I’ve seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.” The man had demanded to see a doctor before he died but was refused. He was continually brutalized for more than 24 hours. The coroner reported that he died of heart failure caused by “blunt force injuries to the lower extremities.” His torturers said he was innocent of any crime.
The second prisoner also died from repeated brutalization to his legs occurring over several days. The torture caused a blood clot that traveled to his heart and blocked his blood supply. He died while still being handcuffed to the ceiling.
The government has had a difficult time discounting the report as it comes from a 2000 page military investigation into the murders and torture at the facility. The report provides graphic examples and evidence of the same culture of torture and impunity already known at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. As has also been the case in those crimes, only a handful of the lowest-level soldiers are being charged. And once again, President Bush claimed to be “alarmed by the reports of prisoner abuse.”
The military report was “leaked” to the New York Times just a week after widespread protests in Afghanistan against the desecration of the Koran by government interrogators at Guantánamo Bay. While the leak was perhaps designed to further terrorize Afghanistanis its main result has been to stiffen resistance while deepening the legitimacy crisis of the U.S.
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Government Refusing to Release Evidence
Judge Orders Release of Torture Photos
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has continued to press forward with its demands that the systematic U.S. torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere be fully exposed and investigated. Based on the ACLU’s Freedom of Information lawsuit filed in October of 2003 demanding information on the treatment of people detained and held in U.S. custody, a federal judge on June 1st ordered the government to release four videos and more than 140 photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The government has one month to make the materials available.
The Pentagon responded to the ruling by saying it will not give the materials up without a further fight, continuing efforts to keep the photos hidden. The government’s argument as to why it will not release the photos is that showing the prisoners’ faces is “a violation of their rights under the Geneva Convention.”
It is well-known that the a main reason the torture is so widespread is the public U.S. policy that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to prisoners in the “war on terrorism.” The ACLU brought out that the government’s reasoning was absurd because the violation of the Geneva Conventions is the torture itself, not the attempts to expose it. They emphasized that the photos and additional evidence will again show that the torture is systematic and sanctioned by top government and military officials.
The government’s concern is not only that more torture will be revealed, but that their own legitimacy as “defenders of freedom and human rights” will be wiped out entirely.
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UN Demands Right to Visit Guantánamo
Human rights officials from the United Nations reported on June 23 rd that they have reliable reports of prisoners being tortured at the U.S. prison camp at its Naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The officials have repeatedly demanded their right to visit the camp and check on conditions of the hundreds of people being held there. The latest request to visit the prison was made in April and U.S. officials are still refusing to allow the UN to visit and talk privately with detainees. The government says only that the request is being “reviewed.” The human rights officials make public reports to UN bodies on torture, physical and mental health, independence of judges and arbitrary detention.
The government has so far allowed only the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit the camp. The ICRC has repeatedly reported its concerns to the government about the torture and unacceptable conditions of the people held prisoner.
President George W. Bush, however, again claiming prisoners are being treated humanely, recently gave an open invitation to journalists to “go and see” for themselves. The government has not extended the same invitation to the UN. As Manfred Nowak, the UN special investigator on torture said, “We deeply regret that the government of the United States has still not invited us to visit those persons arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism or other violations.”
Numerous reports, videos and photographs, from families and lawyers of the hundreds being detained as well as the Pentagon itself have documented the torture and shown Guantánamo for the concentration camp that it is. The Pentagon confirmed the U.S. effort to deeply insult and humiliate prisoners and all Muslims by desecration of the Koran. They also confirmed killing of prisoners using torture in at least 28 cases.
The people being detained have been denied their rights as prisoners of war, have often been kept incommunicado, tortured and repeatedly interrogated and humiliated. This is what Bush means by “humane” treatment.
All of these actions go against the Geneva Conventions, which the U.S. is duty-bound to uphold.
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Guantánamo Detainees: The International Legal Framework
The international armed conflict in Afghanistan ended in June 2002.[1] When that armed conflict ended, those who were captured by the USA during hostilities [2] — and who the USA was obliged to treat as prisoners of war in the absence of a determination “by a competent tribunal” that they were not [3] — were required to be released, unless charged with criminal offences.[4]
Civilians detained in that conflict were entitled to have their detention (“internment”) reviewed “as soon as possible” by a “court or administrative board.”[5] They too were required, when that conflict ended, to be released, unless charged with recognized criminal offences.[6] Those detained later in Afghanistan, for reasons related to the subsequent non-international armed conflict there and transferred to Guantánamo were required, as a minimum, to have their detention promptly, and thereafter periodically, reviewed.
Those detained in countries outside of the zones of armed conflict and transferred to Guantánamo should always have been treated as criminal suspects, therefore subject to international human rights law, including the right to a prompt judicial review of the lawfulness of their detention and to release if that detention is deemed unlawful, and if prosecuted to be tried in proceedings which meet international standards of fairness (see below).[7]
The USA has applied none of the above-mentioned provisions of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in determining the status of the Guantánamo detainees:
• it has not treated those captured during the international armed conflict in Afghanistan initially as prisoners of war, pending determination of their status by a court;
• it has not convened a court to determine whether or not persons captured during the international armed conflict in Afghanistan are entitled to prisoner of war status;
• it has not reviewed promptly the detention of those captured during the subsequent non-international armed conflict in Afghanistan;
• it has not brought the detention of civilians promptly under judicial review, tried or released them;
• it did not, at the close of international hostilities, release the detainees captured during hostilities, with the exception of those against whom criminal procedures had been initiated — in fact, the USA initiated no such procedures.
More than 200 people have been released or transferred from the base, but the USA was expressly acting, in this as well as in other matters, in pursuit of it own perceived interests, rather than in compliance with its international legal obligations. As noted further below, the USA has denied having any such obligations regarding the detainees in Guantánamo.
In view of the above, Amnesty International believes that all those currently held in Guantánamo are arbitrarily and unlawfully detained. It continues to call on the USA to either:
• Release and repatriate the Guantánamo detainees, subject to international law and standards, including the prohibition of returning or transferring a person to a country where he or she faces a risk of torture, other ill-treatment, unfair trial, “disappearance”, arbitrary detention or the death penalty; or:
• Prosecute those suspected of committing internationally recognizable criminal offences [8] in proceedings that meet international standards of fairness, and which do not include the imposition of the death penalty.
Fair trial standards
Any trials, whatever the status of the person being tried, must be carried out in proceedings that meet international standards of fairness.[9] These standards include:
• All persons must be equal before the courts and tribunals;
• Charges must be for internationally recognizable criminal offences;
• Trials must commence within a reasonable time;
• All persons are entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law [10];
• All persons must be presumed innocent until proven guilty;
• All persons must have full access to legal counsel of their own choosing, and have adequate time to prepare their defense;
• All persons must be informed promptly and in detail in a language which they understand of the nature and cause of the charge against them;
• All persons must be tried in their presence;
• All persons must be able to examine, or have examined, the witnesses against them and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on their behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against them;
• No persons must be compelled to testify against themselves or to confess guilt;
• Statements or any other material obtained by torture or by cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment must not be admissible as evidence (except as evidence that such treatment took place);
• All persons convicted of a crime must have the right to have their conviction and sentence reviewed by a higher tribunal according to law. Reviews must be made by competent, independent and impartial tribunals, be genuine and go beyond formal verifications of procedural requirements.
Endnotes
1. The conflict is deemed to have ended with the conclusion of the Emergency Loya Jirga and the establishment of a Transitional Authority on 19 June 2002.
2. Geneva Convention III, Art. 4 uses the term “persons [belonging to certain categories]… who have fallen into the power of the enemy.”
3. Geneva Convention III, Art. 5.
4. Geneva Convention III, Part III, Part IV, Section II.
5. Geneva Convention IV, Art. 43.
6. Geneva Convention IV, Art. 133.
7. See for instance International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Articles 9(3) and 9(4).
8. Prisoners of wars cannot be charged in connection with their lawful conduct of hostilities.
9. See especially Article 14 of the ICCPR, Articles 1, 2(2), 15 and 16 of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;
10. Principle 5 of the UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary states: “Everyone shall have the right to be tried by ordinary courts or tribunals using established legal procedures. Tribunals that do not use the duly established procedures of the legal process shall not be created to displace the jurisdiction belonging to the ordinary courts or judicial tribunals.” Endorsed by General Assembly resolutions 40/32 of 29 November 1985 and 40/146 of 13 December 1985.
From the May 13, 2005 Amnesty International Report on Guantánamo (see below).
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Guantánamo and Beyond: The Continuing Pursuit of Unchecked Executive Power
For the information of our readers we reprint below a portion of the Summary of one of Amnesty International’s most recent reports on Guantánamo Bay and unjust detentions and torture by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other secret prisons. It formed the basis for the material in Amnesty’s 2005 Annual report on human rights abuses in the U.S. and worldwide. The Amnesty material has been branded by the Office of the President, including President George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney, as ”offensive,” “irresponsible,” “reprehensible” and “absurd.” The full report and additional materials are available at amnesty.org.
* * *
In late December 2001, a memorandum was sent from the United States Justice Department to the Department of Defense. It advised the Pentagon that no US District Court could “properly entertain” appeals from “enemy aliens” detained at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Because Cuba has “ultimate sovereignty” over Guantánamo, the memorandum asserted, US Supreme Court jurisprudence meant that a foreign national in custody in the naval base should not have access to the US courts. The first “war on terror” detainees were transferred to the base two weeks later. The memorandum remained secret until it was leaked to the media in mid-2004 in the wake of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
Not long after this leak, on 28 June 2004, the US Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that the federal courts in fact do have jurisdiction to hear appeals from foreign nationals detained in Guantánamo Bay. Yet almost a year later, none of the more than 500 detainees of some 35 nationalities still held in the base — believed to include at least three people, from Canada, Chad and Saudi Arabia, who were minors at the time of being taken into custody — has had the lawfulness of his detention judicially reviewed. The US administration continues to argue in the courts to block any judicial review of the detentions or to keep any such review as limited as possible and as far from a judicial process as possible. Its actions are ensuring that the detainees are kept in their legal limbo, denied a right that serves as a basic safeguard against arbitrary detention, “disappearance” and torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Amnesty International believes, as explained in Section 3, that all those currently held in Guantánamo are arbitrarily and unlawfully detained.
The administration responded to the Rasul decision by setting up Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), panels of three military officers, to determine if each detainee was an “enemy combatant” as labeled. The detainee has no access to secret evidence used against him in this process or to legal counsel to assist him. The CSRT, meanwhile, can draw on evidence extracted under torture or other ill-treatment in making its determinations. The CSRTs began in July 2004 and were completed for the current detainee population in January 2005, with the final decisions issued in late March 2005. In 93 per cent of the 558 cases, the CSRT affirmed the detainee’s “enemy combatant” status. Eighty-four percent of the 38 cases where the detainee was found not to be an “enemy combatant” were decided later than 31 January 2005, when a federal judge, District Judge Joyce Hens Green, found that the CSRT process was unlawful, but before the government’s appeal against her ruling was heard.
US “War on Terror” Detainees, April 2005
* Sources: US to expand prison facilities in Iraq. Washington Post, 9 May 2005; Detainee transfer announced, Department of Defense News Release, 26 April 2005; ICRC operational update. International Committee of the Red Cross, 29 March 2005; Department of Defense Briefing on Detention Operations and Interrogation Techniques, US Department of Defense, 10 March 2005; Rule change lets CIA freely send suspects abroad to jails. New York Times, 6 March 2005. |
At the end of April 2005, three years and three months after “war on terror” detentions in Guantánamo Bay began, the government filed a brief in the US Court of Appeals arguing that Judge Green’s opinion should be overturned and that the purely executive CSRT process should be accepted as a substitute for judicial review. The government emphasized the CSRT’s “findings in favor of 38 detainees” as a sign of a constitutionally fair system. The brief did not point out — or explain if it was pure coincidence — that all but six of these 38 cases had been decided after Judge Green’s ruling. In any event, the appeal brief shows an administration in unapologetic mood, in continuing pursuit of unfettered executive authority under the President’s war powers as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and maintaining a disregard for international law and standards. Among the arguments in the legal brief are that:
• The US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment prohibition on the deprivation of liberty without due process of law “is inapplicable to aliens captured abroad and held at Guantánamo Bay.” [Editor's note: a claim already rejected by the Supreme Court] […]
• Even if the Fifth Amendment did apply to foreign nationals held at Guantánamo, the brief argues, the CSRT procedures would exceed whatever process was due in the case of these detainees. The need for deference to the executive on the question of the withholding of classified information and legal counsel from the detainees is “greatly magnified here, where the issue is not the administration of domestic prisons, but the Executive Branch carrying out incidents of its war-making function.”
• According to the administration, “the determination of who are enemy combatants is a quintessentially military judgment entrusted primarily to the Executive Branch.” The executive, the executive argues, “has a unique institutional capacity to determine enemy combatant status and a unique constitutional authority to prosecute armed conflict abroad and to protect the Nation from further terrorist attacks. By contrast, the judiciary lacks the institutional competence, experience, or accountability to make such military judgments at the core of the war-making powers.”
• On the question of the Geneva Conventions, the brief argues, Judge Green’s contention that Taleban detainees picked up in Afghanistan should have been presumed to have prisoner of war status is “inconsistent with the deference owed to the President as Commander- in-Chief who had unilaterally decided otherwise.
This brief is perhaps an unsurprising response from an administration whose outgoing Attorney General decried what he characterized as “intrusive judicial oversight and second guessing of presidential determinations”; whose Justice Department formulated the position, accepted by the White House Counsel, that the President — who apparently believes that there are people who are “not legally entitled” to humane treatment — could override the national and international prohibition on torture; and whose Secretary of Defense has authorized interrogation techniques that violate international law and standards. This is an administration that has sought unchecked power throughout the “war on terror” and shown a chilling disregard for international law. The USA’s policies and practices have led to serious human rights violations and have set a dangerous precedent internationally. […]
Over a year after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal broke, and as evidence of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by US forces in the “war on terror” continues to mount, not one US agent has been charged with “war crimes” or “torture” under US law (see Section 12). In over 70 per cent of announced official actions taken in response to substantiated allegations of abuse, the punishment has been non-judicial or administrative. While a small number of mainly low-ranking soldiers have been subjected to courts-martial, members of the administration, who from the outset have claimed that the USA treats all detainees humanely and that any abuses have been the actions of a few aberrant soldiers, have remained free of independent investigation despite possible criminal responsibility in abuses. Congress has failed to initiate an independent commission of inquiry, as Amnesty International has sought. The current Attorney General, like his predecessor possibly involved in a conspiracy to immunize US agents from criminal liability for torture and war crimes under US law, has not appointed a special prosecutor to pursue this matter as Amnesty International and others have urged.
As the culture of impunity and military leniency grows, including in cases in which Afghan and Iraqi detainees have died as a result of abuses by US agents (see Section 13 and Appendix 1), the administration continues to seek to try members of the “enemy” for war crimes in front of military commissions — executive bodies, not independent or impartial courts. It has appealed a federal court ruling that the military commission procedures are unlawful because the defendant can be excluded from proceedings. In Section 10, Amnesty International reiterates its total opposition to the military commissions, which violate international fair trial standards in numerous ways. […]
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Families of Dead Soldiers Demand Truth from Bush
The one reservation I had last week when I wrote about the Downing Street Memo [concerning Bush war plans and lies to justify them; see BF #22]was this: How will the loved ones of the soldiers who have died in Iraq feel when they read this?
How much more pain will it cause them to know we now have strong evidence that George Bush knew all along there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? That he made the “facts” fit his personal plan for war?
How does your mind accept what surely breaks your heart? And how much harder to know that your child, your spouse, your parent died in a war that a growing number of Americans are questioning?
Since that column ran, the loved ones of two soldiers, dead in Iraq, have told me. Their words are far more meaningful than anything I could say, so I will turn this column over to them.
From Lauren Bowker of Middletown:
“As a loved one of Joseph Tremblay of New Windsor, who died April 27 in Iraq doing what he considered his duty for his country and fellow Marines, I have feelings of such loss and sadness — and also extreme anger. The article (on the Downing Street Memo) has helped me understand my anger toward the President and his underhanded, dishonest and dangerous policies in Iraq. I urge every American to demand that President Bush be made to answer these allegations regarding what has become known as the Downing Street Memo. I sent in the petition (demanding a hearing) and called all my family and friends, urging them to do the same.
“I am very proud of Joey and the ultimate price he paid for our country, but if President Bush had not lied and been so determined to invade Iraq, Joey would be here with his loved ones, planning his wedding and looking forward to what a young man with such promise could have contributed to the world. My question to President Bush is — how do you look yourself in the mirror every morning with a clear conscience knowing that 1,700 young Americans are dead based on a lie?”
From Karen Meredith of Mountain View, Calif.:
“My only child, Lt. Ken Ballard, was 26 years old when he was killed in Najaf, Iraq, on 5-30-04. My son saved the lives of 60 men that horrible night — they all got to go home to their families. He was one of three soldiers in his battalion killed after they were extended with the First Armored Division.
“After I read the notes from the meeting at Downing Street, I knew that his fate was decided and he was a dead man in July 2002, when that meeting took place. How sad that I didn't’t know then — just two months after he was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Army, just two months after he took an oath to obey the orders of the President of the United States — that his fate was already determined by a corrupt administration.
“Members of the Bush Administration lied repeatedly to this country when they told us time and again that no decision to go to war had been made. And how devastating to know that if the administration had planned for more ground strength, my son might be alive today.
“I belong to a group called Gold Star Families for Peace. The most difficult thing we encounter when we speak out against the war is that most of us are not anti-military and would never malign the soldiers or their service to this country. My son was a fourth-generation Army officer. But our members provide witness to the lies that resulted in our children being killed. We are all trying to put some sanity in this world gone mad.”
Our soldiers in Iraq are dying on average of two per day.
How can the rest of us do nothing to protest this travesty when our silence means that, today, two more families will know such pain?
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We Have Seen Enough to Impeach Bush
As I said in this space two weeks ago, if Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about having sex with an intern, then George Bush needs to be impeached for the deliberate lies he and his cabal told to start a war that has now taken the lives of more than 1,700 young American men and women and countless Iraqi citizens, plus threatens to bankrupt the country. One of our “Sound Off” callers insisted last week that only “Bush haters” would say such things.
Another took to task the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which passed a resolution calling for the president’s impeachment at its convention a week ago, for being “foolish and shortsighted.”
“They bathe themselves in the lies, falsehoods and accusations against the Bush administration, unable to accept their losses, which will continue as far as we can see into the future,” the caller insisted.
If I were that caller, I would not bet a lot on those assumptions, for it is becoming clear that Americans are beginning to realize what an utter disaster this administration has been for their country. The president’s approval ratings are at historic lows — well below 50 percent — and even the war he bamboozled Congress and the people to approve is being questioned by not a minority any more, but the majority of the American people.
What the opinion polls show is that many more than just “Bush haters” have seen enough.
The recent disclosures of secret memos of meetings involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s staff have underlined just how cynical and deceitful the people entrusted to lead the United States were in fabricating intelligence to get this war under way. It has become clear that they never had any intention of letting the United Nations try to settle the dispute. It seems clear now that they had made up their minds nearly a year before that Saddam Hussein was to be forcibly deposed.
Yet Bush and his lieutenants kept telling the American people that war would be waged only as a last resort.
As Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, said last week, “The veracity of those statements has — to put it mildly — come into question.”
Because the administration refuses to answer questions about the so-called Downing Street memo and others that have surfaced since and because Bush’s party controls all of Congress, Conyers had to resort to a “public forum” to gather testimony on the issue.
In a matter of a few days, more than a half million Americans signed petitions backing Conyers in urging the president to explain the memos. So far, Bush has dismissed it all as “falsehoods” and refused to comment further.
But the people want answers. Even those who do not hate Bush do not like being lied to.
Lying presidents need to be impeached. That is what the Republicans in Congress told us only a few years ago.
So let’s get on with it.