Today’s Washington Post has a genuine barn burner of an article that settles the case that George Bush deserves impeachment. He lied to the American people and the world during his 2003 State of the Union Address when he claimed that:
“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”
Up to this point the Bush apologists tried to argue he did not lie, but was simply reporting what the intelligence community was telling him. Now we know–HE LIED.
The Senate Intelligence Committee already has reported that the White House was warned not to use the Niger info. Now, according to the Washington Post, we learn that President Bush was warned specifically by the CIA in January, just a few weeks before the State of the Union, that the Niger story was not true.
Specifically, the story by Gellman and Linzer notes:
After that, the Pentagon asked for an authoritative judgment from the National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community. Did Iraq and Niger discuss a uranium sale, or not? If they had, the Pentagon would need to reconsider its ties with Niger. The council’s reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not been reported before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his highest-ranking advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their case for the rapidly approaching war against Iraq.
The White House and Republican National Committee spin has been exposed now as a bald face lie. The CIA did not tell the President it was okay to say this. The told him it was wrong. What is it, Mr. President, about “baseless” that you do not understand?
And yet, despite being told by the CIA that the story was false, George Bush used the info in his State of the Union to build support for war. There is now no reason for any person of integrity to accuse Joe Wilson of lying. Moreover, the latest revelations, obtained from Patrick Fitzgerald’s response to a filing by Scooter Libby’s lawyers, show that there was an organized effort that included George Bush and Dick Cheney to smear Joe Wilson. Making matters worse, their effort ultimately exposed Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA officer. Mr. Bush, have you no shame?
Instead of admitting their error, George Bush and Dick Cheney defamed Joe Wilson, destroyed Valerie’s ability to serve as a clandestine CIA operative, and exposed a CIA front company. Why? Because Joe Wilson dared to tell the truth. God save us when our leaders decide to punish a citizen for telling the truth. And, at the end of the day, the President used these lies to take us to war. The survivors of the 2400 Americans who have died in Iraq deserve better from their President. I pray our members of Congress find the courage to punish the President and the Vice President for violating the trust the American people invested in them.
Wapo can’t have it both ways on the same day.
Larry, you’re right it was a barn burner of an article… that lays the facts for impeachment.
Except, it got undone by the outrageous lying editorial, same edition – that Bush did no wrong. It’s Wilson who twisted the truth:
A Good Leak: President Bush declassified some of the intelligence he used to decide on war in Iraq. Is that a scandal?
Was that ‘momentous decision’ made way back in October 2001?
Remember: An editorial is an opinion piece, news articles are composed of facts (or are supposed to be). If a news article lays out the factual gruondwork for impeachment, that trumps an opinion piece about how splendiferous Nis Nibs is.
Whether that’s going to get acted upon, well, that’s another story.
On your point that an editorial is an opinion piece. A given. However, my view, and I see I’m not alone – linked below, this Wapo editorial went beyond “opinion.”
An opinion in defense of the president is allowed. In so doing, however, playing loose with the facts of the subject matter in an effort to discredit Ambassador Wilson is straying from opinion making.
To blatantly deconstruct the facts to suit is intellectually dishonest. And that’s the outrage.
At the very least this editor should have refreshed his claims against stated facts in the PDF document of Fitzgerald’s filing and other resources, available at a click. This editorial warrants an apology to Joe Wilson and Wapo readers.
Links to those joining the outrage over this editorial – Claim v. Facts are here and Jane over at Firedoglake takes it line by line, here.
I have been keeping up with them over there to stay informed. They do seem to have it all nailed down. I like to read war and peice with Laura risen too. Larry has it pegged too. There is not much left to be discussed. It is all laid out plain and clear. Even I can follow it through the read…now that is saying something…:o)
The key in your response is the reference to the editorial. It is obviously no longer a question of having it both ways. If the editorial board of wapo gave the ok to that piece of garbage then wapo is letting us all know just where they stand regarding the papers position. There is no need to go any further. Now, we all have to make our decisions with respect to this rag. NOT TOO HARD- IS IT?
billjpa@aol.com
And man it just makes my blood boil (in reference to the about comment about the WSJ editorial) that they still think they can pull the wool over people’s eyes with this twisted logic. Most momentous decision my ass. His most momentous decision IMHO was to look the other way (to be charitible) on and before 9/11 in the interests of his desperately-needed Second Pearl Harbor. Now, no matter what crimes he has committeed, his supporters can say that no one should question our “commander-in-chief” in a time of war. Without Bush’s SPH, he never would have made it to the end of his first term. That is the first term he stole from Al Gore.
I pray our members of Congress find the courage to punish the President and the Vice President for violating the trust the American people invested in them.
There are 233 members in the House and 55 in the Senate–56 counting Lieberman–that have no courage. They have aided and abetted the criminal Liar-in-Chief. They have ceded their constitutional obligation and authority thus enabling an out-of-control Executive, the Cheney misadministration, with dictatorial power.
Now if we can only get the Dems to say this it may get traction. Dinos if you really care about the future of The United States of America there is only one thing left to do. The House must get behind Conyers on Impeachment and the Senate must get behind Fiengold on censure. This is much bigger than the next election. This is the GD future of America. BushCo MUST go!
And preferably before we have a chance to find out whether our armed forces will ignore an illegal order that will drop nuclear weapons on Iran and send the United States into a dark age that will make now look like a picnic in the park and the 1300s seem positively benign by comparison.