Even before the invasion, a number of Americans did not believe that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction (despite Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN). Since the invasion, evidence has been continuously mounting that the Bush Administration may well have known there were no WMDs in Iraq, and simply doctored intelligence to start the war.

For the most part, however, this “evidence” is hearsay, and in many cases comes from people who had been fired by the administration. However, the most compelling evidence that the United States had no interest in disarming Iraq comes from a little known, undisputed fact; Iraq did, in fact, have weapons of mass destruction.

After operation Desert Storm, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 687, requiring that Iraq declare and account for all of its WMDs, and either destroy them or turn them over to the UN. On April 18th, 1991, Iraq made its official declaration.

The UN entered Iraq and placed all of the declared WMDs under UN seal. These weapons remained in Iraq (protected by little more than a plastic ring and caution tape) under UN observation at sites like Bouckaert, Muthanna, and Al-Qaqaa. These sights contained illegal, high power explosives (powerful enough to detonate a nuclear weapon), as many as 2,500 warheads armed with sarin gas, and other banned weapons.

Since that time the United States continually asserted that the April 18th declaration was incomplete, that a significant quantity of Iraqi WMDs remained undeclared, and that some of the WMDs reported as destroyed were in fact intact and in the hands of Iraq.

As the invasion began, the UN observers who had been monitoring the declared sites evacuated. This left known Iraqi WMD sites unsecured and in the hands of Iraq. Though the existence of these sites and their contents were already a mater of public record, the UN reminded the US that these sites existed and needed to be secured.

In the first week of the invasion, the 101st Airborne spent a night at the Muthanna WMD site before moving on to Bagdad, though they failed to secure or even inspect the bunkers there. Six months later not one of the declared WMD sites had been secured, and many were not secured for over a year after that.

By contrast, most of the Iraqi oil fields were secured in 4 weeks.

As a result of failing to secure the WMD sites, every building in Muthanna¹ was looted², and while many of the sarin rockets may have been destroyed in Desert Storm, it is now believed that sarin from Muthanna was the source of a Sarin IED attack on our troops in Iraq³. In addition, 377 tons of high explosive HMX⁴ were looted from Al-Qaqaa, and between 500 and 1,000 tons of high explosives from Bouckaert, making up the vast majority of explosives used by the insurgency today.

While the failure to secure these sites is often thought of in terms of a tragedy which armed the insurgency and costs an ever increasing number of American and Iraqi lives, this begs a larger question… If our intent was to remove WMDs from Iraq, thus making the world a safer place, would we not want to remove, not only illegal WMDs which Iraq possessed and had hidden from us, but also those WMDs which were legally declared and in plain sight? Did the fact that these weapons had been declared make them less dangerous? If we had found illegal WMD’s in Iraq, would we have just left them there?

There are many possible reasons for the US invasion of Iraq. It may be that president Bush wanted to establish a friendly country in the Middle East in light of the likelihood that the Saudi Royal Family will be overthrown and we loose Saudi Arabia as a pro-western ally. It may also be that Bush simply wanted to continue the Desert Storm war, to overcome a perceived failure by his father to invade Iraq. Perhaps the Bush administration simply wanted to secure oil for the United States and make money for big business constituents in the rebuilding of Iraq. Or maybe it was revenge for a believed assassination attempt on Bush’s father.

It may be some, all, or none of these reasons. One thing appears clear, however… At no time did the United States have any interest in securing WMDs in Iraq.

As the reality of a protracted war sets in, we tend to forgo questions of how and why we went to war in favor of debate on what to do with the situation we are now in. Yet if we forget to honestly examine why we went there, we not only fail to hold those responsible accountable, but we dishonor those who fight this war for us.

1. Hanley, C. J. (2004, October 30). Looters overran sensitive Iraq desert site; U.N.-sealed chemical arms at risk. Associated Press
2. Hanley, C. J. (2005, March 26). Loose Ends In Iraq Weapons Hunt. Associated Press
3. Branigan, W. & Warrick, J. (2004, May 4). Deadly Nerve Agent Sarin Is Found in Roadside Bomb. The Washington Post, p.A14.
4. Tons of Iraq explosives missing. (2004, October 25). CNN

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders… All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.”
– Hermann Goering, Nazi Reich Marshall, at the Nuremberg trials

Ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee (The HJC, a committee of congressmen responsible for governmental ethics), Representative John Conyers, has unknowingly telegraphed his intent to impeach George W. Bush.

Impeachment does not mean to remove from office, but simply to charge with a crime. Webster’s defines it as “to bring before a proper tribunal on charges of wrongdoing”.

Congress has the power to remove the president, “on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”, meaning he must both be impeached, and convicted. To do this, the HJC creates articles of impeachment (charges). Each article is sent to the full House for a vote.

If the House passes one or more charges, the Senate takes over. It (the Senate) has a trial (just like one in any court in the country). The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the Judge, the Senate is the jury, the House of Representatives are the prosecution, and the president is the defendant.

If more than 2/3 of the members of the Senate finds the president guilty, he is removed from office.

The first presidential impeachment, in 1868, was of a president who had never been elected. Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Lincoln’s death. The House impeached him on 11 charges. At his trial he was acquitted, though on the most serious charge (essentially that he declared congress unconstitutional) he won by a margin of only one vote.

One Hundred and six years later President Richard M. Nixon was implicated in the Watergate break-in. The HJC returned 3 charges against him, but he resigned before the House could vote to impeach.

In 1998, William J. Clinton became the second president to be successfully impeached. At trial, the Senate concluded that while he was guilty, his crimes did not rise to the level of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, and he was acquitted.

Shortly before the Clinton impeachment, HJC Chairman Henry Hide sent the president a letter asking him to confirm or deny charges in the Starr report. Against the advice of his lawyers, Clinton responded, a response which would later be the basis for the most serious of the 4 charges against him, namely lying to Congress.

Hide, of course, did not expect the letter to generate a confession. Rather, the letter was an attempt to get Clinton to lie, in writing, to Congress. It was a trap, and Clinton took the bait.

This is important, because last month the Ranking member of the HJC, John Conyers, sent a letter to George W. Bush asking him to confirm or deny the charges of the “Downing Street Memo”.

Despite massive coverage in England, the US news has barely mentioned the memo. Published by the London Times on May 1st, 2005, it is the record of a meeting, eight months before the start of the Iraq war, in which top British officials discuss the coming war.

The memo states that Bush had made up his mind to invade Iraq since he had taken office. That unprovoked no-fly zone strikes against Saddam have failed to incite him to war. That, baring his starting a war, an excuse would have to be fabricated for an invasion. That, despite having fewer WMD’s than any other nation of concern (like Libya or North Korea), WMD’s would constitute the only legal excuse to invade. That if the invasion had any hope of proceeding, Blair and Bush would need to undermine diplomatic efforts, lest a legitimate diplomatic solution be found before the invasion.

British or American administration officials have denied the authenticity of this memo.

The memo is nothing new. Richard Clarke (Terrorism Czar for 4 administrations) said that Bush had demanded that Iraq be blamed for 9/11, otherwise we might have to invade Afghanistan first. Bob Woodward (one of the key Watergate figures) has made similar claims, as did former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill.

Despite claims to the contrary, most independent studies show that the media is decidedly right wing. Regardless, a vast right wing conspiracy is not the main reason that the American press hasn’t made much of the memo. Consumers dictate news content. If we became obsessed with cooking, the recipe for Haggis would be on the front page of the New York Times.

They are ignoring the memo because we don’t want to hear it. Because when Bush is in trouble, we change the channel.

Most Americans believed that Bush could be lying when we heard him say that Iraq was the enemy. It didn’t make sense… Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq. But we were so wounded by 9/11 that we were eager to attack anybody. We secretly enjoyed hearing Bush make even a flimsy connection to Iraq, because it gave us an excuse to hate an enemy we could see. Al Qaeda is an ideal, a concept, a theory. Iraq is a country we can watch burn. We, all of us, wanted to teach the world a lesson.

Criminal presidents are nothing new. Nixon committed bribery and extortion. Lyndon B. Johnson faked the “Gulf of Tonkin” incident to start the Vietnam war. He also likely was behind the murder of a political rival in Texas, and had foreknowledge of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Yet we are offended at the very notion of a bad president. Questioning Bush’s integrity is an indictment of all of us, a brutal charge that we may have sacrificed our judgment to bloodlust.

Clinton was impeached not because he was guilty, but because he might have been, and a fair trial was needed to determine it. With so many credible sources saying that Bush lied to this country and to Congress, we must impeach him. We need a fair trial and to find him either guilty, or innocent.

Despite having the lowest approval rating of his presidency, at this moment an impeachment attempt against Bush would be political suicide, viewed as nothing more than revenge for the Clinton impeachment.

Despite that, Conyers is preparing to take a serious stab at it. His questions to Bush are a prelude to impeachment. They are bait, which, unlike the last president, Bush has not taken.

Conyers will likely wait until after the mid-term elections in 2006, when Democrats should narrow the Republican lead in Congress, and fear of constituent retaliation will be at its lowest.

Rest assured, however, that Conyers will enter the ring with George W. Bush.