A Threat to Democracy; Bush's
Deceptions About Iraq
By Representative (Dem) John
Conyers
Congressional Speech , June 10, 2003
Mr. Speaker, my service in this House has
often shown me the profound tension between government secrecy and
democratic decision-making. Rarely however, has that tension been as
starkly posed as in the current revelations of divergence between
President Bush's assertions based on "secret information" about
the alleged threat to America posed by Iraq and the actual assessment of
that threat by America's intelligence professionals.
I have seen the American people apparently
deceived into supporting invasion of sovereign nation, in violation of UN
charter and international law, on the basis of what now appear to be false
assurances. The power of the Congress to declare war was usurped. The
consent of the governed was obtained by manipulation rather than candid
persuasion.
Instead of conducting a sustained all-out
war against the genuine terrorists behind 9/11, President Bush chose to
terrorize the American people. The President, Vice President Cheney and
Secretary Rumsfeld painted lurid nightmares of al Qaeda's attacking U.S.
cities with insidious anthrax or clouds of deadly nerve gas. All of this
was portrayed as coming courtesy of Saddam Hussein, unless we destroyed
the Iraq regime. They also wielded the ultimate threat that Iraq would
imminently endanger America and our closest allies with nuclear weapons.
Members of Congress who voiced deep distrust of those claims were
privately briefed with even more vivid descriptions of the deadly threats
that Saddam posed to American security.
In public speech after speech, the
President and his supporting players assured America's anxious citizens
that attacking Iraq was absolutely necessary to prevent the imminent
threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction from harming them and their
loved ones.
In addition, President Bush was determined
to convince the public that Saddam was personally behind, or at least
intimately involved in 9/11. He and Vice President Cheney repeated that
mantra incessantly. No wonder that about half of the country still
believes that Saddam was involved, although our intelligence community has
emphasized that there is no credible evidence that is true.
The manipulation was massive and
malicious. The motive was simple. The Administration wanted to attack Iraq
for a variety of ideological and geopolitical reasons. But the President
knew that the American people would not willingly risk shedding the blood
of thousands of Americans and Iraqis without the immediate threat of
deadly attack on the United States. As Deputy Secretary of Defense
Wolfowitz recently admitted to an interviewer in an unguarded moment, when
the threat of weapons of mass destruction was chosen as the banner to lead
a march to war, it was chosen for "bureaucratic reasons," not
because the danger was imminent or paramount.
The President and his Cabinet were well
aware that these claims either rested on flimsy projections or came from
sources that most of our Intelligence Community disdained. The President
and his Cabinet knew that in some cases those discredited sources'
assertions were flatly contradicted by the professional assessments of the
intelligence Community experts at CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and
the State Department, and were only supported by a rogue special office
established under Secretary Rumsfeld precisely to "find" or
reinterpret intelligence in order to support the Administration's
determination to invade Iraq.
When war came, our own military field
commanders were surprised by the fierce, often deadly, resistance that our
troops faced from Saddam's "militia." We, and our British
allies, were surprised when the Iraqi people in Basra and elsewhere did
not rise up to welcome our troops with open arms. Most of all, our
military commanders, the Congress and the American people all were
surprised when no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found. Now, as
each day passes, and no WMD has been found, that surprise has turned to
suspicion, to concern and finally to outrage at the deception practiced by
the Bush Administration.
In response, President Bush, Vice
President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, and their spokespersons have offered
one excuse after another. As reporters and whistle-blowers have exposed
the flaws in each excuse, the White House has scrambled to create another,
with the confusing speed of a kaleidoscope's changing patterns. Law
students are taught to plead in the alternative: "I never borrowed
your pot." "Besides, it wasn't cracked when I returned it."
"Anyway, it was not cracked when I borrowed it in the first
place." The Bush Administration has learned that lesson well:
The Bush White House assures us that
weapons of mass destruction will inevitably be found.
At the same time, the Bush White House
argues that they never really said Iraq had such weapons in 2002, only
that they had programs to develop those weapons.
Finally, the Bush White House argues that
it doesn't matter whether Iraq did or did not have such weapons posing a
threat to the United States, because Saddam was a repressive ruler and its
good that the world is rid of him.
They cannot succeed with this shell game
because they cannot outrun the truth. There are too many previous
contradictory statements, too many reports leaked by outraged veteran
intelligence analysts, and too great a record of established facts. The
Administration's arrogantly crafted script is unraveling. President Bush
and his courtiers now have learned the wisdom of the Scottish poet Robert
Burns, who warned:
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when
first we practice to deceive."
Now, the Administration's final refuge is
that the public thinks the war was justified even if no weapons are found.
Obviously, those poll results reflect the American people's relief that
our military's losses, and the loss of Iraqi civilians, regrettable as
they are, have not been even greater. They reflect understandable
revulsion at the horrors of Saddam's regime. Nevertheless, continued
ethnic conflict and violence, ambushes of American soldiers, political
disarray, malnutrition and disease mount daily in the aftermath of this
"easy war." Also, the Bush White House is forced to acknowledge
the re-emergence of al Qaeda's terrorist threat. So the American people
have begun to focus on how badly it appears that they, and their
congressional representatives, may have been misled by a president anxious
to stampede America into war.
In any event, regardless of the final
tally on the war in Iraq, there is a growing awareness that this
disturbing presidential conduct raises issues that transcend any
particular hostilities in which America might engage. It raises the most
profound constitutional questions. How can the separation of powers and
checks and balances designed to protect our Republic continue to do, if
the Executive can work its will through falsehood, deception and
concealment?
Equally pressing is a determination of the
appropriate remedy, should the Administration's assurances to Congress and
to the electorate prove to have been as knowingly false [*E1208] as now
seems to be the case. In the days ahead, I shall consult with my
colleagues, with legal scholars, political scientists and historians, in
order to weigh the appropriate actions necessary to prevent this or any
future Administration from usurping the power of Congress and the power of
the people to decide public policy on the basis of accurate knowledge.
An accurately informed public is the
essence of our democracy. It is most essential on the ultimate question of
peace or war. To deceive the Congress and the public about the facts
underlying that momentous decision is to transgress one of the president's
supreme constitutional responsibilities. I believe the House Committee on
the Judiciary should consider whether this situation has reached that
dimension.
That question is especially acute at this
time because President Bush's disturbing doctrine of "preventive
war" means he plans to persuade the Congress and the electorate that
additional "preventive wars" are necessary. Will that advocacy
be based on deception and false statements, too? The prospect is
frightening.
Finally, I note the provocative analysis
on this point recently offered by former Counsel to the President John
Dean, who has carefully analyzed the nature and context of the President's
many assertions about the threats allegedly posed by Iraq and the
constitutional implications should they prove false upon further
examination. It deserves wide dissemination.
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