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MoEnzyme
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Impeaching Bushcheney
« on: 2007-09-12 12:14:52 » |
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So here we stand. Even if they have the will to do so, lacking a supermajority in the US Senate, the Democrats have no practical means left to end this war. Apparently it only takes one third of the representatives and senators, and less than one third of the American public completely out of touch with reality to keep this catastrophe moving until the next president takes office. Even if congress were to completely cut off all funding to the war effort, I understand that it would take fifteen months to remove our troops. First of all that isn't going to happen, and second of all that would put the date of final exit comfortably after the next presidential election.
The only thing left to do would be to impeach the president and vice president now. No, that wouldn't change anything in Iraq. It probably won't do anything noticible to change things at home. In fact that's the point of it. It would effectively put a check on Bushcheney from any further escalations and war-making . . . like in Iran for example in the last year of this stolen presidency. Considering how far of touch with reality they are, I think this is an important step that must be done. Without something like an impeachment hanging over the head of the commander-in-thief, I think many of a military mindset would have a hard time disobeying orders should such a thing become necessary.
So I say forget about playing around and arguing about funding. Indeed, even if what General Petraeus and that other guy said were a lie, I say give him, or rather our troops the money to fund the rest of the Iraq surge. Its a done deal anyway. But I say give the troops and the officers something more. Give them permission to disobey if they are asked to do anything else crazy. They are probably going to need that more any equipment money can buy. Impeach these usurpers NOW!
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Bass
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #1 on: 2007-09-18 22:49:52 » |
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Hmm.
I hate to point this out but the Constitution states that The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States may only be impeached and removed for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." This means that just disagreeing with his policy is not reason enough for impeachment.
I am not saying that I agree with Bushes policy myself and I have seen the argument that the loss of public trust should be enough to impeach, however if we are impeaching members of the government because we disagree with their ideas and don't trust them I say we take out Congress and the Senate who both have lower poll numbers than the president.
Also I would like to point out that Clinton was not impeached because he had sex in the oval office (he could not be impeached for this). Instead he was impeached for lying under oath. Therefore if you could catch Bush in a lie (under oath) you might be able to impeach him however the war in Iraq will be hard to impeach over seeing as most of the government had the same intelligence regarding Iraq. Not only this government but also the Clinton presidency.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9812/16/clinton.iraq.speech/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1051684/posts
As for using the war to line his pockets with cash I believe you would have to prove that has happened. Not just say look at him he went to war for oil. I am pretty sure that hearsay would not hold up in court.
I have also seen the opinion that Bush should be impeached for wire tapping however following the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) which authorized the President to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
Also this type of action is nothing new executive orders by previous administrations including Clinton's and Carter's authorized the attorneys general to exercise authority with respect to both options under FISA. In Clinton's executive order, he authorized his attorney general "[pursuant] to section 302(a)(1)" to conduct physical searches without court order "if the Attorney General makes the certifications required by that section". It would seem that as a country we only point fingers when we are upset with our leaders?
I have heard people say that this wiretapping could be used illegally to spy on American citizens yet I have never seen any proof that it is being used this way. I have seen proof that it is working to stop terrorist however, such as the stop of a terrorist plot in Germany.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070910/pl_nm/germany_security_usa_dc_1
However I would love to see a good and evidential reason to impeach Bush and hope that someone will provide a sound argument...
... one day.
Regards,
Bass
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Hermit
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #2 on: 2007-09-18 23:16:37 » |
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A war of aggression was quite sufficient for the US lead Nuremberg tribunal to convict and sentence to death a number of German National Socialist leaders who had much less to do with the march nto Poland et al than Cheney and Bush had to do with the march into Iraq.
As in the case with the German political leadership, it doesn't matter if Cheney-Bush waged an illegal war of aggression because they were nasty, because they were fooled, because they were stupid enough to swallow their own propaganda, or even because they are congenital idiots. They could not retroactively justify their "war of preemption" which made it a "war of aggression" and a capital international crime.
And if you study the US Constitution, the US Constitution places International law before itself, which is however the highest form of American law. So if this capital crime does not constitute a high crime in your mind, it would be interesting to discover what does.
Hermit
PS I totally do not approve of capital punishment, but the evidence here is so unequivocal and tangible (unlike the case against Saddam Hussein), the deaths we have caused in Iraq so exceeding Saddam Hussein's total, no matter how they are calculated (and notice the military are (invalidly by everyone else's counting) claiming a decrease in civilian deaths, meaning that they have just called themselves liars as they previously claimed not to be keeping count - evidence that will be useful at the Cheney-Bush trial), the blatant institution of a war of aggression, and the unmistakable glee of our leadership at having seen Hussein executed by their puppets, suggests that it would be hypocrisy to accept a lesser sentence for Cheney and Bush's much greater crimes against humanity.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Bass
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #3 on: 2007-09-19 14:20:30 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2007-09-18 23:16:37 | As in the case with the German political leadership, it doesn't matter if Cheney-Bush waged an illegal war of aggression because they were nasty, because they were fooled, because they were stupid enough to swallow their own propaganda, or even because they are congenital idiots. They could not retroactively justify their "war of preemption" which made it a "war of aggression" and a capital international crime. |
Okay I'm good with that but can we also include Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Edwards, Feinstein, Lieberman, Reid and others as part of the group that needs to be tried. I mean they would also fit the list of nasty, fooled, stupid enough to swallow their own propaganda, congenital idiots. I just have a hard time with those people that believe that Bush is the stupidest president ever but somehow is lucky enough to trick most of the Senate and congress into going to war. I find that these people also seem to blame Bush for things like New Orleans, September 11th, Global warming, and every other bad thing that happens. Making him the stupidest most brilliant man alive.
I would like to point out that I disagree with Bush on many things that he has done or plans to do. Yet I'm a registered independent who thinks that pointing fingers at one man has lead to the decline of our government. What about all those other dummies in the government that hope that people will keep blaming Bush for everything because it gives them a free pass. I will tell you right now I am pretty sure that many people on both sides are crooked and need to go. Look at Sandy Berger, Larry Craig, William Jefferson, and others. These people do all kinds of slimy things and we sit and point fingers at George W. Bush? Why? Because we don't like his policies? Because we think he is stupid? Because he is ruining the world? Well I will tell you right now I can name many policies on both sides that I disagree with, I can name people in high positions on both sides that I think are stupid, and I am pretty sure that Bush alone can't ruin the world.
Yet somehow instead of paying attention to the corruption in our government and working together as a country to solve these problems we sit around and debate whether or not Bush is a Dummy, if he acted appropriately in going to war, what he could have done better during the New Orleans fiasco, if he planned 9/11, etc. While those other people that also voted for the war, could have acted in New Orleans, try to slide bills by without the public noticing, etc. who should also have some type of accountability for these things. Sit back and smile because the country is too obsessed with the faults of one man to notice the failings of anything else. I'll tell you what I think it is a brilliant scheme everyone hates Bush for everything that happens, while those people that are suppose to provide the "checks and balances" to our system get away with all kinds of things because they were "fooled" by the dumbest man alive?
Regards (and hopefully improved  ),
Bass
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Hermit
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #4 on: 2007-09-19 16:31:29 » |
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Much improved. Thank-you.
As I showed, a Cheney-Bush prosecution is a no brainer. Which is why it would make a good start in attempting to reestablish accountability. Yes I agree that Bush Senior, Clinton, senior military officers and the Congress critters of their day and today deserve prosecution for war crimes related to Iraq (particularly the deliberate destruction of civilian infra structure with the intent of causing surplus deaths through disease with the (successful) intent of making the country unsustainable), Serbia-Croatia and the war by proxy we are engaged in in the Sudan. But I don't think it is going to happen anytime soon. The atrocities perpetrated by these parties have been made to seem trivial in comparison to the disasters of the Cheney-Bush Unitary executive.
Yes, pretty much anyone with half a functioning brain knows the system is broken. In large part because the Iron law of Oligarchy has ensured the centralization of wealth, power, media, education and influence, without effective opposition, to what is perhaps an unprecedented degree. You've had my recipe on how to fix it. I don't think it is going to happen. The country is too invested in dollar auctions centered around terror, security, anti-drug actions, law and order, the idea of capitalism coupled with the practice of self-beneficence by the oligarchy for the oligarchy, religiosity, patriotism and even old-fashioned xenophobia to stop and evaluate where these idiocies have lead them.
Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #5 on: 2007-09-19 17:01:34 » |
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Quote from: Bass on 2007-09-19 14:20:30
I just have a hard time with those people that believe that Bush is the stupidest president ever but somehow is lucky enough to trick most of the Senate and congress into going to war. I find that these people also seem to blame Bush for things like New Orleans, September 11th, Global warming, and every other bad thing that happens. Making him the stupidest most brilliant man alive.
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I for one do not think Bush is particularly stupid. The problem of incompetance is primarily an issue of attitude. Lack of intelligence can exacerbate the problem, but great intelligence doesn't really matter if you lack the priorities for competance in the first place.
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Blunderov
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #6 on: 2007-09-19 17:33:06 » |
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Quote from: Bass on 2007-09-19 14:20:30 | Okay I'm good with that but can we also include Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Edwards, Feinstein, Lieberman, Reid and others as part of the group that needs to be tried. |
[Blunderov]No problem. If I had my 'druthers every single member of congress who voted for the war on Iraq would be dangling from a lampost by morning. I'm not kidding*. I'm against the death penalty but when it comes to waging wars of aggression my principles find themselves sorely tested.
At first sight an interesting point about how it can have been possible for one so stupid (Bush) to have caused so many supposedly intelligent people to follow him if there wasn't some justice to his Iraqi crusade. Essentially this is an argument ad populem. Eg - lung cancer is a wonderful thing. If it wasn't, why would so many supposedly sensible people volunteer to get it via smoking? Nonetheless, the question is interesting. There are other ways of 'framing' it though. Another way might be "of what possible use is a political system (and/or entity: ha ha) which believes in torture and pre-emptive warfare?" Do we need it in on our planet? Or would it be better to have smoking crater where it once stood?
*Yes Hilary Clinton too. She can go first.
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Hermit
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #7 on: 2007-09-19 17:52:55 » |
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[Mo] I for one do not think Bush is particularly stupid.
[Hermit] I think Bush fried whatever critical facilities he may once have possessed on a combination of drugs and religion. As may be seen by looking around you, either is perfectly adequate to achieve that result; the combination is severely toxic to rationality.
[Hermit] Delusion and denial are indeed potent - but Bush has taken the consequences to a new level.
Kind Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Walter Watts
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #8 on: 2007-09-19 17:56:05 » |
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Walter Watts
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Walter Watts
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #9 on: 2007-09-19 19:21:47 » |
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Quote from: Blunderov on 2007-09-19 17:33:06
Quote from: Bass on 2007-09-19 14:20:30
Okay I'm good with that but can we also include Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Edwards, Feinstein, Lieberman, Reid and others as part of the group that needs to be tried. |
[Blunderov]No problem. If I had my 'druthers every single member of congress who voted for the war on Iraq would be dangling from a lampost by morning. I'm not kidding*. I'm against the death penalty but when it comes to waging wars of aggression my principles find themselves sorely tested.
<snip>
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A-Fucking-Men Blunderov.
Walter
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Walter Watts
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #10 on: 2007-09-20 18:24:32 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2007-09-19 17:52:55
[Mo] I for one do not think Bush is particularly stupid.
[Hermit] I think Bush fried whatever critical facilities he may once have possessed on a combination of drugs and religion. As may be seen by looking around you, either is perfectly adequate to achieve that result; the combination is severely toxic to rationality.
[Hermit] Delusion and denial are indeed potent - but Bush has taken the consequences to a new level.
Kind Regards
Hermit
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Much agreed, I think Bush was likely smarter at one point in his life. He was infamous for drinking hard liquor (I think Whiskey is his favorite brew) and snorting coke when Daddy was president. They called him one of the "enforcers" . . . basically he would get high and then go tell off other people in the White House who weren't towing his dad's line. I'm sure he could throw a good tantrum wasted. After so much brain damage, I'm sure he doesn't even need the stuff anymore to lose his inhibitions. Both coke and alcohol are fairly damaging to brain cells by themselves, and the combination is much worse.
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Mo Enzyme
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teh
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #11 on: 2007-09-20 19:04:02 » |
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Quote:| [Mo]After so much brain damage, I'm sure he doesn't even need the stuff anymore to lose his inhibitions |
Fried my little brains Lyrics
by: The Kills
Got six troubles, on my back
Like six little milk teeth, all gone bad
Won't move over, won't get gone
Won't move over
Fried my little brains
Fried my little brains
Fried my little brains
Fried my little brains
Only got ten minutes, better get me good
Pull out my little milk teeth, pull good
Won't move over, won't get gone
Won't move over
Fried my little brains
Fried my little brains
Fried my little brains
Fried my little brains
heh
teh
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Hermit
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Re:Impeaching Bushcheney
« Reply #12 on: 2007-10-05 14:01:31 » |
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Mission Accomplished
What follows ought to be sufficient evidence for the prosecution to justify the trial, guilty verdict and execution of GW Bush on the count of "Crimes against Humanity", and in particular, "Initiating a War of Aggression" aggravated by explicitly demonstrated intent. The actual evidence in the form of a transcript is followed by a commentary by Julian Cole, inter alia, President of the Global Americana Institute. The only possible defense is that the transcript is clearly faulty, based on the fact that the translation to and from Spanish shows the unlikely scenario of Bush sounding almost articulate and apparently using words with more than one syllable with aplomb; however sufficient corroborating evidence exists to sustain the accuracy of the meaning, if not the literal words used by this criminal.
As an historical footnote to his incompetence, the direct cost of the war (excluding exhausted equipment, medical and pension costs and the cost to the economy, let alone the collapse of the once mighty dollar) now exceeds 10 times Bush's "$50 billion" below. Next years direct military budget - with over $600 billion already bespoke, is likely to exceed a trillion dollars - 2/3 of WW II expenditures and double the expenditures at the height of the cold war. For what? Meanwhile 15% of American children are suffering from malnutrition and millions of American children are without basic medical provision for want of less than 10 billion a year - or less than 1% of this amount.
Hermit
Source: JuanCole.com
Dated: 2007-09-28
Transcript of Bush-Aznar Consultation in Crawford, February 22, 2003
President Bush. We are in favor of getting a second resolution in the Security Council and would want to do it quickly. We would want to announce it Monday or Tuesday [24 or 25 of February of 2003].
President Aznar: Better Tuesday, after the meeting of the Council of General Affairs of the European Union. It is important to maintain the momentum gained by the resolution at the summit of the European Union [in Brussels, Monday 17 of February]. We would prefer to wait until Tuesday.
Bush. It could be in the evening Monday, considering the time difference. In any case, the next week. We will see that the we will do it with great precision, tightly focusing on our objectives. We will decimate the troops loyal to him, and the regular army quickly will recognize what is going on. We have sent a very clear message to Saddam’s generals: we will treat them like war criminals. We know that they have accumulated an enormous amount of dynamite to demolish bridges and other infrastructure and to blow up the oil wells. We foresee occupying those wells very quickly. Also, the Saudis will help us by putting on the market all the petroleum that is necessary. We are developing a package of very extensive humanitarian aid. We can win without destruction. We are already planning for a post-Saddam Iraq, and I believe that there are good bases for a better future. Iraq has a relatively good bureaucracy and a civil society. It can be organized as a federal system. Meanwhile, we are doing everything possible to take care of the political needs of our friends and allies.[/color]
[b]Aznar: It is very important to have a resolution. It is not the same to act with it as without it. It would be very advisable to have a majority in the Security Council that supported that resolution. In fact, it is important to have it passed by a majority, even if someone exercises a veto. Let us consider that the text of the resolution would have among other things to state that Saddam Hussein has lost his opportunity.
Bush. Yes, by all means. It would be better to have a reference to “necessary means” [a reference to the type of UN resolution that authorizes the use of “all necessary means”].
Aznar: Saddam Hussein has not cooperated, has not been disarmed; we would have to summarize his breaches and to send a more detailed message. That would allow, for example, Mexico to move [a reference to a change in its negative position on the second resolution, the extent of which Aznar could have known about from the lips of president Vicente Fox on Friday, February 21, in Mexico City].
Bush. The resolution will be custom-made in such a way that it will help you. I don't care much about the content.
Aznar: We will send you some sample texts.
Bush. We do not have any text. Only a criterion: that Saddam Hussein disarm. We cannot allow Saddam Hussein to drag things out until the summer. After all, this last stage has already lasted four months, and this is more than enough time to disarm.
Aznar: Having a text would allow us to sponsor it and to be its coauthors, and to arrange for many others to sponsor it.
Bush. Perfect.
Aznar: The next Wednesday [(2)6 of February] I will meet with Chirac. The resolution will already have begun to circulate.
Bush. It seems to me all very good. Chirac knows the reality perfectly. Their intelligence services have explained it to him. The Arabs are transmitting a very clear message to Chirac: Saddam Hussein must go. The problem is that Chirac thinks he is Mister Arab, but in fact he is making their lives impossible. But I do not want to have any rivalry with Chirac. We have different points of view, but I would like that to be all. Give him my best regards. Really! The less rivalry he feels exists between us, the better it will be for everyone.
Aznar: How to combine the resolution with the report of the inspectors?
Condoleezza Rice. Actually there will not be a report on February 28, but the inspectors will present a report written on March 1. We don’t have high hopes for that report. As with the previous ones, it will be a mixed picture. I have the impression that Blix will now be more negative than he was before, with regard to the Iraqis’ intentions. After the appearance of the inspectors before the Council, we must anticipate a vote on the resolution one week later. The Iraqis, meanwhile, will try to explain that they are fulfilling their obligations. It isn’t true, and it won’t be sufficient, though they may announce the destruction of some missiles.
Bush. This is like Chinese water torture. We must put an end to it.
Aznar. I agree, but it would be good to have the maximum possible number of people. Have a little patience.
Bush: My patience is exhausted. I don’t intend to wait longer than the middle of March.
Aznar. I do not request that you have infinite patience. Simply that you do everything possible so that it all works out.
Bush: Countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola, and Cameroon must realize that what’s at stake is the security of the United States, and they should act with a sense of friendship toward us. [Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos should know that the Free Trade Accord with Chile is awaiting Senate confirmation and a negative attitude about this could put ratification in danger. Angola is receiving Millennium Account funds [to help alleviate poverty] and that could be jeopardized also if he’s not supportive. And Putin must know that his attitude is putting in danger the relations of Russia with the United States.
Aznar. Tony [Blair] would like to wait until the 14th of March.
Bush: I prefer the 10th. This is like a game of bad cop, good cop. I don’t mind being the bad cop, and Blair can be the good one.
Aznar. Is it certain that any possibility exists that Saddam Hussein will go into exile?
Bush: The possibility exists, including that he will be assassinated.
Aznar. Exile with a guarantee?
Bush: No guarantee. He is a thief, a terrorist, a war criminal. Compared with Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother Teresa. When we go in, we are going to discover many more crimes and we will take him to the Court the International Justice. Saddam Hussein thinks that he has already escaped. He thinks that France and Germany have ceased fulfilling their responsibilities. He also thinks that the demonstrations of the last week [Saturday, February 15] will protect him. And he thinks that I very am weak. But the people around him know that the things are otherwise. They know that his future is in exile or a coffin. For that reason it is very important to maintain the pressure on him. Gaddafi tells us through back channels that that is the only thing that can finish him off. Saddam Hussein’s only strategy is to delay, to delay and to delay.
Aznar. In fact the biggest success would be to win the game without firing a single shot and entering Baghdad.
Bush: For me it would be the perfect solution. I do not want war. I know what wars are. I know the destruction and the death that they bring with them. I am the one who has to console the mothers and the widows of the dead. By all means, for us that would be the best solution. In addition, it would save $50 billion.
Aznar. We need you to help us with our public opinion.
Bush: We will do everything we can. Wednesday I am going to speak on the situation in the Middle East, proposing the new peace plan with which you are familiar, and on weapons of mass destruction, on the benefits of a free society, and I will locate the history of Iraq in a wider context. Perhaps it will serve you.
Aznar. What we are doing is a very deep change for Spain and the Spaniards. We are changing the policy that the country had followed for the past two hundred years.
Bush: A historical sense of responsibility guides me just as it does you. When within a few years History judges us, I do not want people to ask themselves why Bush, or Aznar, or Blair did not face their responsibilities. In the end, what people want is to enjoy freedom. Recently, in Romania they reminded me of the example of Ceausescu: it was enough for a woman to call him a liar, for the entire repressive edifice to come down. It is the uncontrollable power of freedom. I am convinced that I will get the resolution.
Aznar. All to the good.
Bush: I made the decision to go to the Security Council. In spite of the disagreements in my Administration, I said to my people that we had to work with our friends. It will be wonderful to get a second resolution.
Aznar. The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.
Bush: I am optimistic because I believe that I am in the right. I am at peace with myself. It has been up to us to face a serious threat to the peace. It irritates me a great deal to consider the indifference of the Europeans to the sufferings that Saddam Hussein inflicts on Iraqis. Perhaps because he is brown-skinned, far away, and Muslim, many Europeans think that everything is all right in his regard. I will not forget what Solana once said to me: why do we Americans think that the Europeans are anti-Semitic and unable to confront their responsibilities? That defensive attitude is terrible. I have to acknowledge I have just great relations with Kofi Annan.
Aznar. He shares your ethical preoccupations.
Bush: The more the Europeans attack me, the stronger I am in the United States.
Aznar. We would like to make your strength compatible with the esteem of the Europeans.
Informed Comment - Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Bush-Aznar Transcript: The War Crime of the Century
Authors: Juan Cole
Source: JuanCole.com
Dated: 2007-09-28
I made two claims about the transcript published by El Pais of Bush's conversations with Spanish leader Jose Maria Aznar on 22 February, 2003, at Crawford, Texas.
The first is that the transcript shows that Bush intended to disregard a negative outcome in his quest for a UN Security Council resolution authorizing a war against Iraq. Bush wanted such a resolution. He expressed a willingness to use threats and economic coercion to secure it. But he makes it perfectly clear that he will not wait for the UNSC to act beyond mid-March. He also explicitly says that if any of the permanent members of the UNSC uses its veto, "we will go." That is, failure to secure the resolution would trigger the war.
Uh, that is the opposite of the way it is supposed to work. If you can't get a UNSC resolution, and you haven't been attacked by the state against whom you want to go to war, then you are supposed to stand down.
Both because he set a deadline beyond which his "patience" would not stretch (the poor thing had already waited four months; I mean, is he a toddler that he lacks elementary patience?), and because he specified a UNSC veto as a signal for his launching of the war, Bush made it very clear that he was willing to trash the charter of the United Nations and to take the world back to the 1930s,to an era of mass politics when powerful states launched wars of choice at will on the basis of fevered rhetoric and fits of pique.
The second claim that I made was that Bush was aware of, and rejected, an offer by Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq, probably for Saudi Arabia, presuming he could take out with him a billion dollars and some documents on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. Both provisions were intended by Saddam to protect him from later retaliation. The money would buy him protection from extradition, and the documents presumably showed that the Reagan and Bush senior administrations had secretly authorized his chemical and biological weapons programs. With these documents in his possession, it was unlikely that Bush would come after him, since he could ruin the reputation of the Bush family if he did. The destruction of these documents was presumably Bush's goal when he had Rumsfeld order US military personnel not to interfere with the looting and burning of government offices after the fall of Saddam. The looting, which set off the guerrilla war, also functioned as a vast shredding party, destroying incriminating evidence about the complicity of the Bushes and Rumsfeld in Iraq's war crimes.
The claims by some pundits that Saddam's reported desire to take documents on his WMD programs out of the country proves he had such programs in 2003 or that he wanted to somehow retain specialized knowledge involved in them, are silly. Saddam had destroyed his chemical, nuclear and biological programs and stockpiles, which we know from the most extensive postwar inspections in the history of mammal life. Almost certainly, he wanted to keep with him the documents that showed precisely that-- that he was in fact in compliance with UN resolutions (which he was) and so could not on those grounds be subject to extraordinary rendition and delivered to the Hague. Also, as I say, he may well have wanted to keep with him documents with which to blackmail the Bush family, which in the 1980s had been involved in winking at and enabling his WMD capabilities.
(The objections of some observers that Saddam could have avoided the war by just admitting he had destroyed his WMD and providing the documentation ignore what we have since found out-- that Saddam was afraid that if the world knew he had no chemical weapons left, the Shiites, Kurds and Iranians would finish him off in no time. He could not hope to stay in power if he came clean on this matter, but once he left power he knew that his actions of the 1980s could get him convicted at the Hague and so he needed to keep with him documentation on his Reagan/ Bush partners in crime as a hedge.)
Aznar asked Bush if he would grant Saddam these guarantees, and Bush roared back that he would not. (That is the answer to those who want to know where in the text Bush declines Saddam's offer to flee. Nobody in his right mind would flee without guarantees; by declining them, Bush scotched the deal.)
By refusing to allow Saddam to flee with guarantees, Bush ensured that a land war would have to be fought. This is one of the greatest crimes any US president ever committed, and it is all the more contemptible for being rooted in mere pride and petulance. [ Hermit : It should be noted that I observed exactly this at the time that it occurred. ]
Note that even General Pervez Musharraf allowed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to go to Saudi Arabia with similar guarantees, even though Sharif was alleged to have attempted to cause Musharraf's death. A tinpot Pakistani general had more devotion to the good of his country, and more good sense, than did George W. Bush.
The passage in which Bush agrees with Aznar that it would be better if Baghdad fell without a fight refers to the possibility that the Iraqi officer corps would assassinate Saddam and decline to put up a fight. Bush would very much have liked such a fantasy to come true.
But he did not need to fantasize. He had a real offer in the hand, of Saddam's flight. He rejected it. By rejecting it, he will have killed at least a million persons and became one of the more monstrous figures in recent world history.
I have done a translation of the transcript, with some dictionary work. I would be glad of any corrections, but I think it is good enough for government work. No one can read it without recognizing that Bush was champing at the bit to go to war; that he only wanted the UNSC as a fig leaf and was determined to ignore it if it did not authorize the war; and that he had a deal on the table from Saddam but absolutely refused to pursue it, preferring instead either a sanguinary conflict or his adolescent fantasy of Baghdad falling without a shot.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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