Bush's Testimony Before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

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By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers

[Author's Note: Some time after the Bush Administration had left office, in the beginnings of what historians call the period of "Restoration of Constitutional Rule," criminal indictments were about to be unsealed aimed at the architects of the former regime's illegal foreign wars/torture policy and martial law-type domestic rule. Those indicted would have one last chance to escape likely incarceration: testimony before the recently-instituted Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Here is a partial transcript from George W. Bush's appearance.]

Bishop Tutu: Welcome, Mr. Bush. Please raise your right hand and swear that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Bush: Yeah, sure, I do.

Tutu: Please be seated. As we made clear when Dick Cheney ( www.crisispapers.org/essays6w/cheneytestifies.htm ) and Donald Rumsfeld ( www.crisispapers.org/essays-w/grilled.htm ) and others Administration officials appeared before us, those who testify here do so voluntarily in order to be evaluated for amnesty for their crimes. Please note: If you tell the full truth, you will escape criminal prosecution and likely incarceration. If you lie, you will be dismissed from these proceedings and your case will be forwarded to the criminal prosecuters here and to the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. Do you understand?

Bush: Yep. Given how important these proceedings are, I would request that my attorney be permitted to sit next to me.

Tutu: There are no legal issues to be adjudicated here. This is a forum for truth-telling, plain and simple. The Congress and President established this independent commission in an effort to aid in social healing. In my country of South Africa and in other countries where such Truth and Reconciliation Commissions have been active, telling the truth, no matter how painful it seems at first, works as a salve for society, allowing both victims and victimizers to move forward in their lives. Now, let us begin.

Bush: OK, bring it on.

Commissioner#1: Mr. Bush, we will be covering much ground here this morning. In the main, questions will cover two major areas: your lies and deceptions in starting an unnessessary war, and your placing yourself above the law and the Constitution.

Bush: Nobody ever impeached me for any of that. As for the war, my behavior in attacking Iraq was justified by the intelligence we had at the time. I can't help it if the intelligence agencies gave me bad advice.

Chairman Tutu: This is your final warning, sir. This is not a court of law, you are not going to be punished for anything you say here, as long as you tell the truth. If you persist in pretending that you did nothing wrong, you w--

Bush: Hey, you accused me of lying and deceiving the American people. I don't see it that way at all. As President, I was responsible for protecting and defending my country. There may have been mistakes made along the way, but everyone makes mistakes. There's no need to use terms like "war crimes" and "lies."

Commissioner#2: Your "mistakes," if you want to call them that, resulted in the death and wounding of at least several hundred thousand troops and civilians. We'll get to those war crimes and lies as we proceed. Right now, since you brought up the subject, I would like to hear you talk about those "mistakes" you made in launching and prosecuting the war in Iraq. Can you name any?

Bush: I think I was, I think we all were, too gullible in accepting the word of Iraqi exiles as to how easy this war was going to be. It was a mistake to do so. Likewise, it was a mistake on our part to accept at face-value the assessments presented us by the intelligence community about Iraq's WMD stockpiles. That was a mistake; it made fighting that war much more difficult.

Commissioner #1: If I understand your testimony, sir, your "mistakes" had to do with the details of how to prosecute the war, not on the decision to go to war in the first place.

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Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (more...)

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