>Illegal Wiretaps-Illegal Torture-Lied Us Into War-Flouts the Rule of Law<

[Stephanie]

IMPEACH




http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.+Res.+635:

Resolved, That there is hereby established in the House of Representatives a select committee to be known as the Select Committee on Administration Predetermination to Go to War and... (Introduced in House)

HRES 635 IH

109th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. RES. 635

Creating a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

December 18, 2005

Mr. CONYERS submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Rules

RESOLUTION

Creating a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.

Resolved, That there is hereby established in the House of Representatives a select committee to be known as the Select Committee on Administration Predetermination to Go to War and Manipulation of Intelligence (in this resolution referred to as the `Select Committee').

PURPOSES AND FUNCTIONS

SEC. 2. (a) The Select Committee is authorized and directed to investigate all relevant government agencies actions and decisions relating to the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, and retaliating against critics, including:

(1) actions by the White House, National Security Council, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Central Intelligence Agency related to United Nations and Iraq Survey Group inspections of Iraq;

(2) knowledge of Iraq's ability regarding and intentions toward, or lack of ability regarding or intentions toward, nuclear weapons capability;

(3) knowledge regarding Iraq's possession of or attempted possession of, or regarding the lack of possession of or attempted possession of, chemical or biological weapons;

(4) knowledge of Iraq's possession of aluminum tubes for conventional rocket programs or for nuclear weapons development;

(5) knowledge regarding Iraq's intent, or lack of intent, toward acquiring yellowcake uranium from Niger;

(6) knowledge of any involvement, or lack of involvement, by Iraq in the September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States;

(7) knowledge of any connections or ties, or of any lack of connections or ties, between Iraq and al Qaeda;

(8) knowledge of any meeting, or lack of any meeting, between Iraqi intelligence officials and Mohammed Atta in Prague, Czechoslovakia;

(9) preparations for detention, interrogation and treatment of detainees, or lack thereof, made in the planning stages of the Iraq conflict prior to March 19, 2003;

(10) knowledge of abuses and mistreatment of detainees during the Iraq conflict after March 19, 2003;

(11) the investigation of abuses and mistreatment, or lack thereof, the results of these investigations, any sanctions or punishment of offenders, and any efforts to keep these reports either from supervisors, officials or the public;

(12) an examination of all prison facilities, including the High Value Detainee facility at Baghdad airport and secret prisons or `black sites,' for detaining individuals outside the United States;

(13) the extent to which civilian, military, or intelligence officials expressly authorized, willingly ignored, or created an atmosphere that condoned the abuses and mistreatment that occurred at Abu Ghraib, Iraq; and

(14) knowledge on the part of any White House officials of the covert identity of Valerie Plame Wilson and any discussion or communication by such officials with members of the media about such identity, and any failure to enforce Executive Order 12958.

[Stephanie]

1. as to torture:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060227fa_fact

Much of Brant’s information had been supplied by an N.C.I.S. psychologist, Michael Gelles, who worked with the C.I.T.F. and had computer access to the Army’s interrogation logs at Guantánamo. Brant told me that Gelles “is phenomenal at unlocking the minds of everyone from child abusers to terrorists”; he took it seriously when Gelles described the logs as shocking.

The logs detailed, for example, the brutal handling of a Saudi detainee, Mohammed al-Qahtani, whom an F.B.I. agent had identified as the “missing twentieth hijacker”—the terrorist who was supposed to have been booked on the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field. Qahtani was apprehended in Afghanistan a few months after the terrorist attacks.

Qahtani had been subjected to a hundred and sixty days of isolation in a pen perpetually flooded with artificial light. He was interrogated on forty-eight of fifty-four days, for eighteen to twenty hours at a stretch. He had been stripped naked; straddled by taunting female guards, in an exercise called “invasion of space by a female”; forced to wear women’s underwear on his head, and to put on a bra; threatened by dogs; placed on a leash; and told that his mother was a whore. By December, Qahtani had been subjected to a phony kidnapping, deprived of heat, given large quantities of intravenous liquids without access to a toilet, and deprived of sleep for three days. Ten days before Brant and Mora met, Qahtani’s heart rate had dropped so precipitately, to thirty-five beats a minute, that he required cardiac monitoring.

***

By mid-January, the situation at Guantánamo had not changed. Qahtani’s “enhanced” interrogation, as it was called in some documents, was in its seventh week, and other detainees were also being subjected to extreme treatment. Mora continued to push for reform, but his former Pentagon colleague told me that “people were beginning to roll their eyes. It was like ‘Yeah, we’ve already heard this.’ ”

[Stephanie]

2. As to Flouting the Rule of Law and Seizing Unlawful Powers >

The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Jan. 13, 2006

By Cooper's count, George W. Bush issued 23 signing statements in 2001; 34 statements in 2002, raising 168 constitutional objections; 27 statements in 2003, raising 142 constitutional challenges, and 23 statements in 2004, raising 175 constitutional criticisms. In total, during his first term Bush raised a remarkable 505 constitutional challenges to various provisions of legislation that became law.

***

Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush is using his signing statements to effectively nullify them as they relate to the executive branch. These statements, for him, function as directives to executive branch departments and agencies as to how they are to implement the relevant law.

***

Generally, Bush's signing statements tend to be brief and very broad, and they seldom cite the authority on which the president is relying for his reading of the law. None has yet been tested in court. But they do appear to be bulking up the powers of the presidency. Here are a few examples:

Suppose a new law requires the President to act in a certain manner - for instance, to report to Congress on how he is dealing with terrorism. Bush's signing statement will flat out reject the law, and state that he will construe the law "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."

The upshot? It is as if no law had been passed on the matter at all.

Or suppose a new law suggests even the slightest intrusion into the President's undefined "prerogative powers" under Article II of the Constitution, relating to national security, intelligence gathering, or law enforcement. Bush's signing statement will claim that notwithstanding the clear intent of Congress, which has used mandatory language, the provision will be considered as "advisory."

The upshot? It is as if Congress had acted as a mere advisor, with no more formal power than, say, Karl Rove - not as a coordinate and coequal branch of government, which in fact it is.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060113.html

[Stephanie]

3. good morning cspan

[EFerrari]

4. Three more reason: