Do you remember Nancy Pelosi's comment on ABC Television's "The View" last week? In justifying her decision to deny the oath she swore to defend the Constitution Pelosi said it might be easier for her to consider allowing impeachment proceedings to begin if someone would produce evidence that crimes had been committed by the Bush regime.
Setting aside the fact that an impeachment hearing is structured specifically to find such evidence, Pelosi deliberately ignored obviously criminal acts committed by George W. Bush of which the rest of the country, as well as the rest of the world, are acutely aware. One can only speculate as to why Pelosi would take such a cavalier, dismissive stance.
Now, there's more information for Pelosi to ignore. According to Mike Allen writing at Politico.com, "A new book by author Ron Suskind claims that the White House [Bush] ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein. Suskind writes in 'The Way of the World,' to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war. (Suskind) also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official 'that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.'"
If your immediate reaction is, so? this is not exactly a news flash, you are to be forgiven. It is common knowledge at this point that the lies, phony evidence, White House conspiracies, directives from Dick Cheney and his stable of Neo-conservatives, dis-information dumps to the Bush Crime Family's co-conspirators in media (you know who they are) - all of it pasted together with the coagulated blood of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians - was designed to drive America into a war of theft, fraud, and murderous dishonor unparalleled in recent U.S. history. So, what added weight to the enormity of these crimes does a forgery add?
The dream of this war and the attendant death and destruction was foremost in the sick minds of Dick Cheney and every putrid son-of-a-bitch carefully selected by him. The goal was not only war for its sake alone, but also the theft of Iraq's oil reserves and the resulting panic that would push the price of oil to unprecedented levels. As a bonus, the Fascists who drove this insanity also had the goal of, for once and for all, absolutely poisoning whatever remained of the American ideal of representative government. In its place would be a Neo-conservative corporatism that would end completely the promise presented by the Framers 232 years ago.
The "news flash" comes from the testimony in the book that yet another crime was committed in forcing the U.S. into war: forgery, the crime of thieves, liars, cheats and sneaks. A crime so fitting to the petty thugs and cheap punks who, through the protections provided by the Bush Crime Family, were able to rise to the level of international war criminals.
From the Politico.com article: The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’” The Telegraph story by Con Coughlin . . . was touted in the U.S. media by supporters of the war, and he was interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"Over the next few days, the Habbush letter continued to be featured prominently in the United States and across the globe," Suskind writes. "Fox's Bill O'Reilly trumpeted the story Sunday night on 'The O'Reilly Factor,' talking breathlessly about details of the story and exhorting, 'Now, if this is true, that blows the lid off al Qaeda—Saddam.'"
According to Suskind, the administration had been in contact with the director of the Iraqi intelligence service in the last years of Hussein’s regime, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti.
“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind writes. “It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq – thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.”
Mike Allen adds that, "Suskind writes in his new book that the order to create the letter was written on 'creamy White House stationery.' The book suggests that the letter was subsequently created by the CIA and delivered to Iraq . . . The author claims that such an operation, part of 'false pretenses' for war, would apparently constitute illegal White House use of the CIA to influence a domestic audience, an arguably impeachable offense."
So, there you are, Ms. Speaker. There's something for you to consider when you say, "Well, if someone would offer some evidence . . ." Don't you think it's time, Ms. Speaker, for you to get the hell out of the way and allow the U.S. Constitution to function as the Framers intended? If you insist on ignoring your oath of office, so be it. Others, in grand positions of power and influence like you, have done the same. But why not let the investigation - the equivalent to a criminal court preliminary hearing - begin? Or is there something in the impeachment testimony that might link you as a co-conspirator?
Is that a possibility, Ms. Speaker?
