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host · 09-13-2006, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

......Many seem to be arguing points and issues that are different than what I consider important. For example - The record shows Saddaam had no nuclear weapons. I accept that, howerver, I believe he would have instituted a progam, get the weapons and use them. Some some keep arguing the point about him not having the weapons or a program therefore the invasion was not needed. What I am saying is - Saddaam wanted to control the territory and oil in the middle east, invaded countries in the past, defyed UN mandates, and he would have used nuclear weapons when it obtained them.

That situation was unacceptable in my opinion.

The oil for food program shows we did not have him or the situation under control.

Saddamm needed to go.

He was a threat.

Military action was needed.

Acting after the fact would have been much more costly.

I know I am repeating myself, but I bring up the same points because I don't think I have ever recieved direct responses.

aceventura3, the last sentence in your above quote, IMO, is contradicted by what the Duelfer report said, documented in the article that I included in my last post. Twice, now, I'm making a sincere and thorough effort to demonstrate, and document, why I believe that the Bush administration had no basis for pre-emptive invasion and occupation of Iraq, for the justifications that you maintain are valid and legal. Kindly respond with some references that explain what triggered the "About Face", that changed the threat that Saddam's Iraq posed to the US, considering the comments of Powell, Rice, and DIA chief Thomas R. Wilson, in 2001, before 9/11, and Cheney's 9/16/01 statment that we had Saddam Hussein, "bottled up".

I would think that you would perceive a motivation to defend your justification for the invasion, since the record strongly indicates that Saddam posed no threat, in Cheney's own opinion, as late as on 9/16/01, Powell said that the sanctions against Iraq had been reformed to keep Saddam from obtaining WMD, Duelfer reported that there was no program to obtain or rebuild the WMD capability, and ten days before the invasion, the WMD inspection program was back in place in Iraq, and the French Foreign Minister, Villepin, made a speech before the UN, stating that:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/07/villepin.transcript/">Villepin: 'War is acknowledgment of failure'</a>
.....And what have the inspectors told us? That for a month Iraq has been actively cooperating with them, that substantial progress has been made in the area of ballistics with the progressive destruction of al-Samoud II missiles and their equipment, that new prospects are opening up with the recent question of several scientists. Significant evidence of real disarmament has now been observed, and that is indeed the key to Resolution 1441.

Therefore, I would like solemnly to address a question to this body, and it's the very same question being asked by people all over the world. Why should we now engage in war with Iraq? And I would also like to ask, why smash the instruments that have just proven their effectiveness? Why choose division when our unity and our resolve are leading Iraq to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction? Why should we wish to proceed by force at any price when we can succeed peacefully?

War is always an acknowledgment of failure. Let us not resign ourselves to the irreparable. Before making our choice, let us weigh the consequences. Let us measure the effects of our decision. And it's clear to all in Iraq, we are resolutely moving toward completely eliminating programs of weapons of mass destruction. The method that we have chosen worked. ........

aceventura3, as you can see, I'm documenting that Powell said he had worked to "reform" the sanctions, and right after the 9/11 attacks, Cheney said that Saddam was "bottled up". Rice had the same opinion, six weeks before 9/11. When the US invaded Iraq, Villepin had said in his speech, ten days before that the WMD inspectors were back in Iraq, and making serious progress for "a month". I will credit the Bush policy of assembling a threat of use of military force, under the resolution of the UN, for restoring the inspections teams that "were making progress".

<b>aceventura3, the scenario that you wanted to keep Saddam from restarting WMD development or obtaining and holding WMD, was in place, by all accounts, before Bush ordered the military invasion. To order invasion, in spite of that, is a war crime, similar to shooting a disarmed "suspect", after calling away the police who were frisking him for hidden weapons....just because....you...with the gun, still felt threatened by the suspect. Your stance IMO, reduced to unsubstantiated and it follows...unjustified, pre-emptive war.....is one that both Bush and Cheney failed to justify, in new attempts in the last few days, probably because of the huge, contrary body of evidence that hangs over this. A strong case, IMO, can also be made that the invasion of Iraq was not justified to the point that arguments that it was an illegal war of aggression, must be respected, and without any more valid justification than Bush and Cheney can now come up with, may end up prevailing.</b>

Quote:

http://davidcorn.com/
September 12, 2006
For Bush, a 9/11 Anniversary Changes Nothing:
<i>I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat.</i>

But what is the president's evidence for that? As our book notes, the final report of the Iraq Survey Group - the CIA-Defense Department unit that searched for WMDs in Iraq - concluded that Saddam's WMD capability "was essentially destroyed in 1991" and Saddam had no "plan for the revival of WMD." <b>The book also quotes little-noticed congressional testimony that Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson, then head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, gave in March 2002.</b> He noted that Iraq was not among the most pressing "near-term concerns" to U.S. interests and that as a military danger Iraq was "smaller and weaker" than during the Persian Gulf War. Wilson testified that Saddam possessed only "residual" amounts of weapons of mass destruction, not a growing arsenal. In an interview for the book, he told us, <b>"I didn't really think [Saddam and Iraq] were an immediate threat on WMD."</b>

Quote:

http://russia.shaps.hawaii.edu/secur...lson_2002.html
Global Threats and Challenges

Vice Admiral Thomas R. Wilson
Director, Defense Intelligence Agency

Statement for the Record
Senate Armed Services Committee

19 March 2002
......Iraq

Saddam's goals remain to reassert his rule over the Kurds in northern Iraq, undermine all UN restrictions on his military capabilities, and make Iraq the predominant military and economic power in the Persian Gulf and the Arab world. The on-going UN sanctions and US military presence continue to be the keys to restraining Saddam's ambitions. Indeed, years of UN sanctions, embargoes, and inspections, combined with US and Coalition military actions, have significantly degraded Iraq's military capabilities. Saddam's military forces are much smaller and weaker than those he had in 1991. Manpower and equipment shortages, a problematic logistics system, and fragile military morale remain major shortcomings. Saddam's paranoia and lack of trust - and related oppression and mistreatment - extend to the military, and are a drain on military effectiveness....

.....Iraq retains a residual level of WMD and missile capabilities. The lack of intrusive inspection and disarmament mechanisms permits Baghdad to enhance these programs........

<b>...and from David Corn's Sept. 11, 2006 entry on davidcorn.com, again, reacting to Cheney's statements to Tim Russert, on Sept. 10, 2006:</b>

Appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, Cheney encountered a decent grilling from host Tim Russert, who pressed him on how Cheney and George W. Bush had justified the war in Iraq. "Based on what you know now, that Saddam did not have the weapons of mass destruction that were described, would you still have gone into Iraq?" Russert asked. Yes, indeed, Cheney said, hewing to the company line. And he pointed to what appeared to be evidence that supported that no-regrets stance:

Look at the Duelfer Report and what it said. No stockpiles, but they also said he has the capability. He'd done it before. He had produced chemical weapons before and used them. He had produced biological weapons. He had a robust nuclear program in '91. All of this is true, said by Duelfer, facts.

Well, let's look at the report of Charles Duelfer who headed up the Iraq Survey Group, which was responsible for searching for WMDs after the invasion. (Duelfer took the job following David Kay's resignation in late 2003.) It just so happens that in our new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?link_code=ur2&tag=davidcorncom-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&location=%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2F0307346811%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fqid%3D1156557686%2Fref%3Dsr_1_1%3Fie%3DUTF8">Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War</a>, Michael Isikoff and I quote from that report, and it noted that Saddam's WMD capability was essentially destroyed in 1991.

That is the opposite of what Cheney told Russert the report said. Cheney went on to remark,

Think where we'd be if [Saddam] was still there...We also would have a situation where he would have resumed his WMD programs.

<h3>Yet Duelfer reported that at the time of the invasion, Saddam had no plan for the revival of WMD.</h3>

Cheney even justified the invasion of Iraq by citing an allegation that was just debunked in a Senate intelligence committee report released on Friday. Claiming there was a significant relationship between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda, he cited the case of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who was recently killed in Iraq). After the US attacked the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Cheney said, Zarqawi

fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02 and was there from then, basically, until basically the time we launched into Iraq.

The implication here is that Baghdad sanctioned the terrorist activity of Zarqawi, a supposed al Qaeda associate. But the Senate intelligence committee report--released by a Republican-run panel--noted that prior to the invasion of Iraq Zarqawi and his network were not part of al Qaeda. (That merging came after the invasion.) More important, the report cites CIA reports (based on captured documents and interrogations) that say that Baghdad was not protecting or assisting Zarqawi when he was in Iraq. In fact, Iraqi intelligence in the spring of 2002 had formed a "special committee" to locate and capture him--but failed to find the terrorist. A 2005 CIA report concluded that prior to the Iraq war,

the [Saddam] regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.

So why is Cheney still holding up Zarqawi as evidence that Baghdad was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden? If he knows something the CIA does not, perhaps he should inform the agency.

During the Meet the Press interview, Cheney blamed the CIA for his and Bush's prewar assertions that Iraq posed a WMD threat. That's what the intelligence said, Cheney insisted. Our book shows that this explanation (or, defense) is a dodge. There were dissents within the intelligence community on key aspects of the WMD argument for war--especially the charge that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Cheney dwelled on that frightening possibility before the war, repeatedly declaring that the US government knew for sure that Iraq had revved up its nuclear program. Yet there was only one strong piece of evidence for this claim--that Iraq had purchased tens of thousands of aluminum tubes for use in a centrifuge that would produce enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. And that piece of evidence was hotly contested within the intelligence community.

One CIA analyst (whom we name for the first time in Hubris) was fiercely pushing the tube case. Yet practically every other top nuclear expert in the US government (including the centrifuge specialists at the Department of Energy) disagreed. This dispute was even mentioned in The Washington Post in September 2002. But neither Cheney nor Bush (nor national security adviser Condoleezza Rce) took an interest in this important argument. Instead, they kept insisting the tube purchases were proof Saddam was building a bomb. They were wrong. And the nuclear scientists at the Department of Energy (again, as our book notes) were ordered not to say anything publicly about the tubes.

This is but one example of how the Bush White House rigged the case for war by selectively embracing (without reviewing) convenient pieces of iffy intelligence and then presenting them to the public as hard-and-fast proof. But Cheney is right--to a limited extent. The CIA did provide the White House with intelligence that was wrong (which the White House then used irresponsibly). The new Senate intelligence report, though, shows that this was not what happened regarding one crucial part of the Bush-Cheney argument for war: that al Qaeda and Iraq were in cahoots.

Before the war, Bush said that Saddam "was dealing" with al Qaeda. He even charged that Saddam had "financed" al Qaeda. The Senate intelligence report notes clearly that the prewar intelligence on this critical issue said no such thing.

The report quotes a CIA review of the prewar intelligence: "The data reveal few indications of an established relationship between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein's regime." The lead Defense Intelligence Analyst on this issue told the Senate intelligence committee that "there was no partnership between the two organizations." And post-invasion debriefings of former Iraqi regime officials indicated that Saddam had no interest in working with al Qaeda and had refused to meet with an al Qaeda emissary in 1998.

The report also augments the section in our book on Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a captured al Qaeda commander who was taken by the CIA to Egypt where he was roughly--perhaps brutally--interrogated and claimed that Iraq had provided chemical weapons training to al Qaeda. Though there were questions about al-Libi's veracity from the start, Secretary of State Colin Powell used al-Libi's claims in his famous UN speech to argue that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were partners in evil--that there was a "sinister nexus" between the two. Al-Libi later recanted, and the CIA withdrew all the intelligence based on his claims. In other words, the Bush administration had hyped flimsy intelligence to depict Saddam and bin Laden as WMD-sharing allies.

The Senate intelligence report concluded that "Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa'ida to provide material or operational support."

What did Cheney tell Russert? Saddam, he insisted, "had a relationship with al Qaeda." When Russert pointed out that the intelligence committee "said that there was no relationship," Cheney interrupted and commented, "I haven't had a chance to read it."...

Powell, Rice, Cheney, and Adm. Wilson were on record, contradicting the later case made for "war".

Quote:

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-no-wmd.htm
2001: Powell & Rice Declare Iraq Has No WMD and Is Not a Threat

SENATOR BENNETT: Mr. Secretary, the U.N. sanctions on Iraq expire the beginning of June. We've had bombs dropped, we've had threats made, we've had all kinds of activity vis-a-vis Iraq in the previous administration. Now we're coming to the end. What's our level of concern about the progress of Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons programs?

SECRETARY POWELL: The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the last 10 years, not in deterring him from moving in that direction, but from actually being able to move in that direction. The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago. It has been contained. And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear -- I think the best intelligence estimates suggest that they have not been terribly successful. There's no question that they have some stockpiles of some of these sorts of weapons still under their control, but they have not been able to break out, they have not been able to come out with the capacity to deliver these kinds of systems or to actually have these kinds of systems that is much beyond where they were 10 years ago.

So containment, using this arms control sanctions regime, I think has been reasonably successful. We have not been able to get the inspectors back in, though, to verify that, and we have not been able to get the inspectors in to pull up anything that might be left there. So we have to continue to view this regime with the greatest suspicion, attribute to them the most negative motives, which is quite well-deserved with this particular regime, and roll the sanctions over, and roll them over in a way where the arms control sanctions really go after their intended targets -- weapons of mass destruction -- and not go after civilian goods or civilian commodities that we really shouldn't be going after, just let that go to the Iraqi people. That wasn't the purpose of the oil-for-food program. And by reconfiguring them in that way, I think we can gain support for this regime once again.

When we came into office on the 20th of January, the whole sanctions regime was collapsing in front of our eyes. Nations were bailing out on it. We lost the consensus for this kind of regime because the Iraqi regime had successfully painted us as the ones causing the suffering of the Iraqi people, when it was the regime that was causing the suffering. They had more than enough money; they just weren't spending it in the proper way. And we were getting the blame for it. So reconfiguring the sanctions, I think, helps us and continues to contain the Iraqi regime.

At the preceding link and here:
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/034...2,47837,6.html
<b>On July 29, 2001, Rice said:</b>
<b>Well, the president has made very clear that he considers Saddam Hussein to be a threat to his neighbors, a threat to security in the region, in fact a threat to international security more broadly.....

....But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.</b>

Quote:

http://www.usembassy.it/file2001_03/alia/a1030612.htm
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the modified Iraq sanctions policy will prevent Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from acquiring weapons of mass destruction but allow Iraqi civilians to obtain needed consumer goods.

"We will keep them from developing their military capability again, just the way we have for the last ten years, but we will not be the ones to blame because the Iraqi people, it is claimed, are not getting what they need to take care of their children or to take care of their needs," Powell said at a press conference with Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in Washington March 6.[2001]

Quote:

http://www.usembassy.it/file2001_03/alia/a1030802.htm
08 March 2001

Text: Powell Explains Changes in Iraq Sanctions Policy
Secretary of State Colin Powell says the sanctions regime that was put in place to prevent Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction needs shoring up.

Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 8 that the United Nations sanctions regime has kept Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in check. "Even though we know he is working on weapons of mass destruction, we know he has things squirreled away, at the same time we have not seen that capacity emerge to present a full fledged threat to us," he said.

However, Powell said that when he took office five and a half weeks ago "I discovered that we had an Iraq policy that was in disarray, and the sanctions part of that policy was not just in disarray; it was falling apart."....

.......It became clear, he said, that the sanctions had to be modified in order to "eliminate those items in the sanctions regime that really were of civilian use and benefited people, and focus [sanctions] exclusively on weapons of mass destruction and items that could be directed toward the development of weapons of destruction."

Powell said he found support for this modification from Arab allies, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and many NATO colleagues. "And so we are continuing down this line that says let's see if there is a better way to use these sanctions to go after weapons of mass destruction and take away the argument we have given him that we are somehow hurting the Iraqi people. He is hurting the Iraqi people, not us."

To end the sanctions, Powell said, Iraq must permit the U.N. inspection teams to return to their work.....

Quote:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2001/2940.htm
Richard Boucher, Spokesman
Washington, DC
May 17, 2001

At his May 17 briefing at the State Department in Washington, Boucher said the U.S. government expects a draft resolution on revising the sanctions on Iraq to be circulated at the U.N. Security Council next week. He said the British proposal currently circulating at the U.N. for modifying the sanctions tracks with the U.S. position.

"We are working towards what will be a significant change in our approach to Iraq in the United Nations," Boucher said. "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability and weapons of mass destruction while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."

Quote:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/200...d_rhetoric.php
Bush's Canned Rhetoric
David Corn
September 12, 2006

Anniversaries are artificial. Was anything truly different on Monday because it was five years to the day murderous jihadists killed 3,000 people in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? George W. Bush showed that the day was not unique, for he delivered a speech that contained nothing new.....

......If there was a reason to pay heed to this speech, it was to hear how Bush would link Iraq to 9/11. Bush made the connection this way:

<i> On September the 11, we learned that America must confront threats before they reach our shores—whether those threats come from terrorist networks or terrorist states. I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat.</i>

<b>He did not specify how Saddam had been a clear threat. The Iraqi tyrant had no weapons of mass destruction and no capacity to manufacture them. The report submitted by Charles Duelfer—the final head of the Iraq Survey Group, which searched for the WMDs after the invasion—noted that Saddam's WMD capability “was essentially destroyed in 1991” and that Saddam had no “plan for the revival of WMD.”

And Saddam had no significant ties to the evildoers of 9/11, according to the recently released report of the (Republican-controlled) Senate intelligence committee. The committee cited a 2005 CIA assessment that noted, "The data reveal few indications of an established relationship between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein's regime." The Senate report concluded that Saddam had wanted nothing to do with al-Qaida.

No weapons. No partnership with the jihadists. And as Tim Russert pointed out when Dick Cheney appeared on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, even the vice president after 9/11 had said that Saddam was “bottled up.”</b> So what was the threat? Bush did not explain. He did assert that the world is “safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.” Perhaps. Perhaps not. World safety is one of those standards that's quite difficult to evaluate. If the United States had devoted the time and money spent on the Iraq enterprise to securing and rebuilding Afghanistan and fully funding homeland security, maybe we would all be safer.

Quote:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...s&ct=clnk&cd=1
(Above is cached link to whitehouse.gov to highlight Cheney's phrase)
Camp David, Maryland
September 16, 2001

The Vice President appears on Meet the Press with Tim Russert

VICE PRES. CHENEY: There is--in the past, there have been some activities related to terrorism by Saddam Hussein. But at this stage, you know, the focus is over here on al-Qaida and the most recent events in New York. <h3>Saddam Hussein's bottled up, at this point, but clearly, we continue to have a fairly tough policy where the Iraqis are concerned.</h3>

MR. RUSSERT: Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No.....

There is no telling. But one can safely say that the 3,000 or so Iraqi civilians who are murdered each month in the sectarian violence that has been unleashed in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq would probably have an opinion on this safety question—if they could speak from the grave. In his speech, Bush breezed past the issue of Iraq’s death toll, citing the political advances in Iraq and essentially ignoring the casualties and chaos there. He offered prayers for the families of those Americans lost in battle. For the slain Iraqis, he had not a word.

Once more, he offered canards to defend staying the course. “Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone,” Bush remarked. “They will not leave us alone.” But can the White House produce one example of a serious-minded critic of Bush's Iraq policy who believes that that al-Qaida will hoist a white flag if the United States disengages in Iraq? This is the disingenuous work of too-clever speechwriters and message-makers in the White House. The president and his aides cheapened the debate—even during the remembrance of a national tragedy.

Quote:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051305X.shtml
Navy Judge Finds War Protest Reasonable
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 13 May 2005

In a stunning blow to the Bush administration, a Navy judge gave Petty Officer 3rd Class Pablo Paredes no jail time for refusing orders to board the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard before it left San Diego with 3,000 sailors and Marines bound for the Persian Gulf on December 6th. Lt. Cmdr. Robert Klant found Pablo guilty of missing his ship's movement by design, but dismissed the charge of unauthorized absence. Although Pablo faced one year in the brig, the judge sentenced him to two months' restriction and three months of hard labor, and reduced his rank to seaman recruit....

......Pablo maintained that transporting Marines to fight in an illegal war, and possibly to commit war crimes, would make him complicit in those crimes. He told the judge, "I believe as a member of the armed forces, beyond having a duty to my chain of command and my President, I have a higher duty to my conscience and to the supreme law of the land. Both of these higher duties dictate that I must not participate in any way, hands-on or indirect, in the current aggression that has been unleashed on Iraq."

Pablo said he formed his views about the illegality of the war by reading truthout.org, listening to Democracy Now!, and reading articles by Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Naomi Klein, Stephen Zunes, and Marjorie Cohn, as well as Kofi Annan's statements that the war is illegal under the UN Charter, and material on the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals.

I testified during the sentencing hearing at Pablo's court-martial as a defense expert on the legality of the war in Iraq, and the commission of war crimes by US forces. My testimony corroborated the reasonableness of Pablo's beliefs. I told the judge that the war violates the United Nations Charter, which forbids the use of force, unless carried out in self-defense or with the approval of the Security Council, neither of which obtained before Bush invaded Iraq. I also said that torture and inhuman treatment, which have been documented in Iraqi prisons, constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and are considered war crimes under the US War Crimes Statute. The United States has ratified both the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, making them part of the supreme law of the land under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

I noted that the Uniform Code of Military Justice requires that all military personnel obey lawful orders. Article 92 of the UCMJ says, "A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States...." Both the Nuremberg Principles and the Army Field Manual create a duty to disobey unlawful orders. Article 509 of Field Manual 27-10, codifying another Nuremberg Principle, specifies that "following superior orders" is not a defense to the commission of war crimes, unless the accused "did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know that the act ordered was unlawful."

I concluded that the Iraq war is illegal. US troops who participate in the war are put in a position to commit war crimes. By boarding that ship and delivering Marines to Iraq - to fight in an illegal war, and possibly to commit war crimes - Pablo would have been complicit in those crimes. Therefore, orders to board that ship were illegal, and Pablo had a duty to disobey them.

On cross-examination, Navy prosecutor Lt. Jonathan Freeman elicited testimony from me that the US wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan also violated the UN Charter, as neither was conducted in self-defense or with the blessing of the Security Council. <b>Upon the conclusion of my testimony, the judge said, "I think that the government has successfully proved that any service member has reasonable cause to believe that the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal."</b>

The Navy prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Pablo to nine months in the brig, forfeiture of pay and benefits, and a bad conduct discharge. Lt. Brandon Hale argued that Pablo's conduct was "egregious," that Pablo could have "slinked away with his privately-held beliefs quietly." The public nature of Pablo's protest made it more serious, according to the chief prosecuting officer.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, President-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. She writes a weekly column for t r u t h o u t.

Quote:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19212
Volume 53, Number 13 · August 10, 2006

Why the Court Said No
By David Cole
1.

Since the first few days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has taken the view that the President has unilateral, unchecked authority to wage a war, not only against those who attacked us on that day, but against all terrorist organizations of potentially global reach. The administration claims that the President's role as commander in chief of the armed forces grants him exclusive authority to select "the means and methods of engaging the enemy."[1] And it has interpreted that power in turn to permit the President to take actions many consider illegal.

The Justice Department has maintained that the President can order torture, notwithstanding a criminal statute and an international treaty prohibiting torture under all circumstances. President Bush has authorized the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, despite a comprehensive statute that makes such surveillance a crime. He has approved the "disappearance" of al-Qaeda suspects into secret prisons where they are interrogated with tactics that include waterboarding, in which the prisoner is strapped down and made to believe he will drown. He has asserted the right to imprison indefinitely, without hearings, anyone he considers an "enemy combatant," and to try such persons for war crimes in ad hoc military tribunals lacking such essential safeguards as independent judges and the right of the accused to confront the evidence against him.

In advocating these positions, which I will collectively call "the Bush doctrine," the administration has brushed aside legal objections as mere hindrances to the ultimate goal of keeping Americans safe. It has argued that domestic criminal and constitutional law are of little concern because the President's powers as commander in chief override all such laws; that the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties that regulate the treatment of prisoners during war, simply do not apply to the conflict with al-Qaeda; and more broadly still, that the President has unilateral authority to defy international law.[2] In short, there is little to distinguish the current administration's view from that famously espoused by President Richard Nixon when asked to justify his authorization of illegal, warrantless wiretapping of Americans during the Vietnam War: "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."

If another nation's leader adopted such positions, the United States would be quick to condemn him or her for violating fundamental tenets of the rule of law, human rights, and the separation of powers. But President Bush has largely gotten away with it, at least at home, for at least three reasons. His party holds a decisive majority in Congress, making effective political checks by that branch highly unlikely. The Democratic Party has shied away from directly challenging the President for fear that it will be viewed as soft on terrorism. And the American public has for the most part offered only muted objections.

These realities make the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, issued on the last day of its 2005– 2006 term, in equal parts stunning and crucial. Stunning because the Court, unlike Congress, the opposition party, or the American people, actually stood up to the President. Crucial because the Court's decision, while on the surface narrowly focused on whether the military tribunals President Bush created to try foreign suspects for war crimes were consistent with US law, marked, at a deeper level, a dramatic refutation of the administration's entire approach to the "war on terror."

At bottom, the Hamdan case stands for the proposition that the rule of law—including international law—is not subservient to the will of the executive, even during wartime. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the concluding lines of his opinion for the majority:

In undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction.

The notion that government must abide by law is hardly radical. Its implications for the "war on terror" are radical, however, precisely because the Bush doctrine has so fundamentally challenged that very idea.....

.....In its arguments to the Supreme Court, the administration invoked the Bush doctrine. It argued that the President has "inherent authority to convene military commissions to try and punish captured enemy combatants in wartime," even without congressional authorization, and that therefore the Court should be extremely hesitant to find that Bush's actions violated the law.[3] And it insisted that in declaring that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al-Qaeda Bush had exercised his constitutional war powers, and his decision was therefore "binding on the courts."[4]

The Supreme Court, by a vote of 5–3, rejected the President's contentions. (Chief Justice Roberts did not participate, since it was his own decision that was under review.) The Court's principal opinion was written by its senior justice, John Paul Stevens, a World War II veteran, and the only justice who has served in the military. He was joined in full by Justices Ginsburg, Souter, and Breyer, and in the main by Justice Kennedy. Kennedy also wrote a separate concurring opinion, and because he provided the crucial fifth vote, his views may prove more significant in the long run.[5]

The Court found, first, that the administration's procedures for military tribunals deviated significantly from the court-martial procedures used to try members of our own armed forces, and that the Uniform Code of Military Justice barred such deviations unless it could be shown that court-martial procedures would be "impracticable." The administration made no such showing, the Court observed, and therefore the tribunals violated the limit set by Congress in the Uniform Code. The Court could well have stopped there. This conclusion was a fully sufficient rationale to rule for Hamdan and invalidate the tribunals. Had it done so, the decision would have been far less consequential, since Congress could easily have changed its law or declared that court-martial procedures are impracticable.

But the Court went on to find that Congress had also required military tribunals to conform to the law of war, and that the tribunals impermissibly violated a particular law of war— Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which requires that detainees be tried by a "regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."

Common Article 3 is denominated "common" because it appears in each of the four Geneva Conventions. It sets forth the basic human rights that apply to all persons detained in conflicts "not of an international character." The administration has long argued that because the struggle with al-Qaeda is international, not domestic, Common Article 3 does not apply. The Court rejected that view, explaining that the phrase "not of an international character" was meant in its literal sense, to cover all conflicts not between nations, or "inter-national" in character. (Conflicts between nations are covered by other provisions of the Geneva Conventions.) Since the war with al-Qaeda is a conflict between a nation and a nonstate force, the Court ruled, it is "not of an international character," and Common Article 3 applies.

The Bush administration devoted much of its brief to arguing that the Geneva Conventions are not enforceable by individuals in US courts, and Hamdan's lawyers devoted equal space to arguing the opposite. The Court, however, neatly sidestepped that question, finding that it need not decide it because Congress had incorporated the Geneva Conventions into US law when it required that military tribunals adhere to the "law of war."

The fact that the Court decided the case at all in the face of Congress's efforts to strip the Court of jurisdiction is remarkable in itself. That the Court then broke away from its history of judicial deference to security claims in wartime to rule against the President, not even pausing at the argument that the decisions of the commander in chief are "binding on the courts," suggests just how troubled the Court's majority was by the President's assertion of unilateral executive power. That the Court relied so centrally on international law in its reasoning, however, is what makes the decision truly momentous.

3.

The Hamdan decision has sweeping implications for many aspects of the Bush doctrine, including military tribunals, NSA spying, and the interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects. With respect to trying alleged war criminals, the administration now has two options. Without changing the law, it can put into effect the regular court-martial procedures that are used for trying members of the American military. The administration has already rejected that option, and has instead said that it will ask Congress for explicit approval of military tribunals that afford defendants fewer protections than courts-martial would. Because the Court's decision rests on statutory grounds, the President could in theory seek legislation authorizing the very procedures that the Court found wanting. Already, Senators Jon Kyl, Lindsay Graham, Arlen Specter, and others have announced that they will seek legislation to authorize military tribunals.

But because the Court also ruled that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies, and that the tribunals as currently constituted violate that provision, legislative reform is not so simple. Were Congress to approve the tribunals in their present form, it would thereby be authorizing a violation of Common Article 3. Congress unquestionably has the legal power, as a matter of domestic law, to authorize such a violation. Treaties and legislation are said to be of the same stature, and therefore Congress may override treaties by enacting superseding laws. But passing a law that blatantly violates a treaty obligation is no small matter. And the US has a strong interest in respecting the Geneva Conventions, since they protect our own soldiers when captured abroad. It is one thing to put forward an arguable interpretation of the treaty, as the administration did in contending that Common Article 3 simply did not apply in Hamdan's case. It is another thing to blatantly violate the treaty. As a result, the Hamdan decision is likely to force the administration to make whatever procedures it adopts conform to the dictates of Common Article 3.

The Court's decision also has significant implications for the controversy over President Bush's authorization of NSA spying without court approval. On its face, that program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which requires that a special court grant permission for wiretapping. The administration has defended the NSA program with two arguments. It claims that Congress implicitly authorized the program when it enacted the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against al-Qaeda in 2001. And it maintains that the President has inherent unilateral power to authorize such surveillance as commander in chief, notwithstanding the fact that it was criminally banned by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.[6]

In Hamdan's case, the administration similarly argued that the AUMF of 2001 authorized the military tribunals, and that in any event the President had unilateral authority to create the tribunals as commander in chief. The Court dismissed both contentions......

.........On July 11, the administration announced that Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England had issued a memo to military officers instructing them that the Supreme Court had ruled that Common Article 3 applies to the conflict with al-Qaeda, and ordering them to ensure that their practices conformed to Common Article 3. Some news accounts characterized this as a "major policy shift," but in fact the memo merely states what the Supreme Court decided. The memo did suggest that the military had always been abiding by a directive from President Bush to treat detainees "humanely." What it did not say, however, is that administration lawyers had claimed under that dictate that the following tactics were legally available for interrogating al-Qaeda suspects: forced nudity; "using detainees['] individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress"; waterboarding; and "scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful consequences are imminent for him and/or his family." In addition, the military found nothing inhumane with the interrogation of a Guantánamo detainee that included forcing him to strip naked and wear women's underwear, putting him on a leash and making him bark like a dog, and injecting him with intravenous fluids and then barring him from going to the bathroom, forcing him to urinate on himself. If the military considers all of this "humane," the assertion that it will abide by Common Article 3 is meaningless.

Some members of Congress have specifically objected to the implications of the Court's reliance on Common Article 3, and have suggested that they might try to undo it. Senator Graham has complained that the Court's ruling might make our soldiers liable for war crimes. But if American soldiers commit war crimes, they should be held responsible. Congress only recently passed the McCain Amendment's ban on all cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by overwhelming margins. Surely the last message we should want to send to the rest of the world is that the McCain Amendment was only for show, because we are not actually willing to be bound by these rules if they have any enforceable effect.

<h3>In fact, the Court's decision further suggests that President Bush has already committed a war crime, simply by establishing the military tribunals and subjecting detainees to them.</h3> As noted above, the Court found that the tribunals violate Common Article 3, and under the War Crimes Act, any violation of Common Article 3 is a war crime. Military defense lawyers responded to the Hamdan decision by requesting a stay of all tribunal proceedings, on the ground that their own continuing participation in those proceedings might constitute a war crime. But according to the logic of the Supreme Court, the President has already committed a war crime. He won't be prosecuted, of course, and probably should not be, since his interpretation of the Conventions was at least arguable. But now that his interpretation has been conclusively rejected, if he or Congress seeks to go forward with tribunals or interrogation rules that fail Article 3's test, they, too, would be war criminals.

David Cole s a Professor of Law at Georgetown and the author of Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism and Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security, both now available in revised paperback editions. (August 2006)

<b>aceventura3, the Bush admin. is concerned enough that the analysis in the Law Professor David Cole'ss preceding, excerpted review, puts it in legal jeopardy, for it's commission of Crimes against Humanity, to attempt:</b>

Quote:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...q/15246142.htm
Posted on Thu, Aug. 10, 2006

<b>Retroactive war crime protection drafted</b>
PETE YOST
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing any humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.

The move by the administration is the latest effort to deal with treatment of those taken into custody in the war on terror.

At issue are interrogations carried out by the CIA, and the degree to which harsh tactics such as water-boarding were authorized by administration officials. A separate law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, applies to the military.

The Washington Post first reported on the War Crimes Act amendments Wednesday.

One section of the draft would outlaw torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, but it does not contain prohibitions from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions against "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." A copy of the section of the draft was obtained by The Associated Press.

The White House, without elaboration, said in a statement that the bill "will apply to any conduct by any U.S. personnel, whether committed before or after the law is enacted."

Two attorneys said that the draft is in the revision stage but that the administration seems intent on pushing forward the draft's major points in Congress after Labor Day. The two attorneys spoke on condition of anonymity because their sources did not authorize them to release the information.

"I think what this bill can do is in effect immunize past crimes. That's why it's so dangerous," said a third attorney, Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice....

....Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Congress "is aware of the dilemma we face, how to make sure the CIA and others are not unfairly prosecuted."

He said that at the same time, Congress "will not allow political appointees to waive the law."

Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA's executive director, said that "President Bush is looking to limit the War Crimes Act through legislation" now that the Supreme Court has embraced Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. In June, the court ruled that Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates Article 3.

....and yup.....this is long....but so is this ordeal, and since the folks who ordered the invasion of Iraq, can't justify why they did it, I think that sharing what I've learned, could be beneficial to you, aceventura3, because, there is no telling where embracing a policy of "pre-emption", failed and resulting in crimes against humanity, will take our country with it's destroyed international "standing", next......