|
9/11 con't.
Eleanor Hill, Executive Director of the joint congressional committee investigating the performance of
the US intelligence community before September 11, 2001, reported in mid-September 2002 that
intelligence reports a year earlier "reiterated a consistent and constant theme: Osama bin Laden's intent
to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States."
That joint inquiry revealed that just two months before September 11, an intelligence briefing for
"senior government officials" predicted a terrorist attack with these words: "The attack will be
spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack
preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning."
Given the White House's insistence on secrecy with regard to what intelligence was given to President
Bush, the joint-inquiry report does not divulge whether he took part in that briefing. Even if he did not,
it strains credulity to suppose that those "senior government officials" would have kept its alarming
substance from the president.
Again, there is no evidence that the president held any meetings or took any action to deal with the
threats of such attacks.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his
trust as President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and
justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W.
Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.
Article XXXIV
OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional
oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability,
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional
duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed",
has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President,
obstructed investigations into the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11,
2001.
Following September 11, 2001, President Bush and Vice President Cheney took strong steps to thwart
any and all proposals that the circumstances of the attack be addressed. Then-Secretary of State Colin
Powell was forced to renege on his public promise on September 23 that a "White Paper" would be
issued to explain the circumstances. Less than two weeks after that promise, Powell apologized for
his "unfortunate choice of words," and explained that Americans would have to rely on "information
coming out in the press and in other ways."
On Sept. 26, 2001, President Bush drove to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in
Langley, Virginia, stood with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and said: "My report to the
nation is, we've got the best intelligence we can possibly have thanks to the men and women of the
C.I.A." George Tenet subsequently and falsely claimed not to have visited the president personally
between the start of Bush's long Crawford vacation and September 11, 2001.
Testifying before the 9/11 Commission on April 14, 2004, Tenet answered a question from Commission
member Timothy Roemer by referring to the president's vacation (July 29-August 30) in Crawford and
insisting that he did not see the president at all in August 2001. "You never talked with him?" Roemer
asked. "No," Tenet replied, explaining that for much of August he too was "on leave." An Agency
spokesman called reporters that same evening to say Tenet had misspoken, and that Tenet had briefed
Bush on August 17 and 31. The spokesman explained that the second briefing took place after the
president had returned to Washington, and played down the first one, in Crawford, as uneventful.
In his book, At the Center of the Storm, (2007) Tenet, refers to what is almost certainly his August 17
visit to Crawford as a follow-up to the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US" article in the CIAprepared
President's Daily Brief of August 6. That briefing was immortalized in a Time Magazine
photo capturing Harriet Myers holding the PDB open for the president, as two CIA officers sit by. It is
the same briefing to which the president reportedly reacted by telling the CIA briefer, "All right, you've
covered your ass now." (Ron Suskind, The One-Percent Doctrine, p. 2, 2006). In At the Center of the
Storm, Tenet writes: "A few weeks after the August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to Crawford to
make sure that the president stayed current on events."
A White House press release suggests Tenet was also there a week later, on August 24. According to
the August 25, 2001, release, President Bush, addressing a group of visitors to Crawford on August 25,
told them: "George Tenet and I, yesterday, we piled in the new nominees for the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, the Vice Chairman and their wives and went right up the canyon."
In early February, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney warned then-Senate Majority Leader Tom
Daschle that if Congress went ahead with an investigation, administration officials might not show up
to testify. As pressure grew for an investigation, the president and vice president agreed to the
establishment of a congressional joint committee to conduct a "Joint Inquiry." Eleanor Hill, Executive
Director of the Inquiry, opened the Joint Inquiry's final public hearing in mid-September 2002 with the
following disclaimer: "I need to report that, according to the White House and the Director of Central
Intelligence, the president's knowledge of intelligence information relevant to this inquiry remains
classified, even when the substance of the intelligence information has been declassified."
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was created on
November 27, 2002, following the passage of congressional legislation signed into law by President
Bush. The President was asked to testify before the Commission. He refused to testify except for one
hour in private with only two Commission members, with no oath administered, with no recording or
note taking, and with the Vice President at his side. Commission Co-Chair Lee Hamilton has written
that he believes the commission was set up to fail, was underfunded, was rushed, and did not receive
proper cooperation and access to information.
A December 2007 review of classified documents by former members of the Commission found that
the commission had made repeated and detailed requests to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 for documents
and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and had been told falsely by a
top C.I.A. official that the agency had "produced or made available for review" everything that had
been requested.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his
trust as President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and
justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W.
Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
