OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Nadler disses Constituents on Impeachment

We need to acknowledge that one of the hurdles is outrage fatigue; it
is hard to decide where to start among the many high crimes and
misdemeanors of which Vice President Cheney is demonstrably guilty.
From my perspective as a former intelligence officer, we certainly
cannot allow to escape censure Cheney's conjuring up false
"intelligence" to justify what Nuremberg defined as the "supreme
international crime"—a war of aggression—in Iraq.

My colleagues and I in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
could see what was happening early on. That is why, in the first
appeal of its kind by an intelligence alumni group, we wrote to
President George W. Bush on July 14, 2003: "We strongly recommend that
you ask for Cheney's immediate resignation (Memorandum for the
President, "Intelligence Unglued").

As I mention in my statement to the NYC Town Hall, former CIA director
George Tenet has since written that Cheney's war mongering "went well
beyond what our analysis would support," and apparently came as
something of a surprise to the president himself.

The Founders knew that, human nature being what it is, abuses like
these were inevitable somewhere down the line. That's why they took
such pains to provide an orderly political procedure to enable us to
deal promptly and responsibly with such high crimes and misdemeanors.
I doubt it ever entered their minds that their successors, for
perceived partisan political advantage, would shun that orderly
procedure upon which so much now depends.

The process is called impeachment; the rules are clear.

All it takes is courage. And I do not refer here to the invertebrates
in Congress.

I mean us. Can we handle the truth? Can we press for our rights as
courageously as the Founders? Everything hinges on our answers to
these questions.

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Statement

Is Impeachment Necessary to Protect the Constitution?
Town Hall Meeting/Impeachment Forum
March 9, 2008

Congressman Nadler, I am Ray McGovern born and bred in the Bronx a bit
north of your district.

I regret not being able to be with you in person to give my perspective
on whether impeachment is necessary to protect the Constitution—and
specifically, whether the manufacturing of false intelligence to
"justify" an unprovoked war fits the category of "high crime or
misdemeanor."

I was an analyst at the CIA for 27 years, after serving as an Army
infantry/intelligence officer in the early sixties. You may recall that
we first met on June 16, 2005 in the basement of the Capitol, the only
room made available to Congressman John Conyers to take testimony on
the Downing Street Minutes.

The minutes were the official British record of a briefing of
then-Prime Minister Tony Blair on July 23, 2002. At that briefing, the
chief of British intelligence reported on his discussions with his
counterpart in Washington, who told him three days earlier that,
President George W. Bush had decided to make war on Iraq, and that "the
intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

In my testimony in the Capitol that day I drew attention to the words
of Vice President Dick Cheney on August 26, 2002—words that framed the
discussion for the next 45 days during which Congress was deliberately
misled into giving the president approval to make war on Iraq.

This is what Cheney said:

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