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The Matrix
Green Party Calls For Impeachment
The Downing Street Memo proves that invasion of Iraq wasn't the 'last resort' but Bush's intent all along, leading to cooked intelligence and other impeachable offenses.
Greens note bipartisan and media complicity in overlooking evidence of deceit, urge public protest.
In Washington, Green leaders reiterated the party's July 2003 call for impeachment of Bush, and called on all Americans outraged by the Bush Administration's list of deceptions, violations of the U.S. Constitution, the disastrous Iraq occupation, and policies that have disgraced the U.S. to demand that Congress begin the impeachment process.
"The invasion and occupation of Iraq has caused the deaths of over 1,600 U.S. military personnel, as well as untold suffering and tens of thousands of civilian dead in Iraq," said David Cobb, the Green Party's 2004 candidate for President of the United States. "The Downing Street Memo confirms what we already knew -- that a conspiracy to deceive the American people led us into the war, and that this conspiracy constitutes 'high crimes and misdemeanors' according to the U.S. Constitution."
The Green Party of the United States called for the impeachment of George W. Bush during the party's 2003 national meeting. Greens have organized and participated in numerous protests against the war since early 2003, and have called for an immediate end to the occupation, cancellation of further war spending, and removal of military recruiters from schools as U.S. troops continue to face death and injury in Iraq.
Greens praised Rep. John Conyers' (D-Mich.) public demand for an explanation from President Bush in the wake of Downing Street Memo's publication, and questioned why so many of the mainstream U.S. media have remained silent on the content and implications of the memo.
But Greens also called many Democrats as responsible as Republicans for Iraq policy, having voted in October 2002 to transfer war power to the President, which created the scenario for White House deceit and abuse of power, and having recently voted for another $82 billion for the war.
"It was already apparent, long before the Downing Street Memo, that President Bush's case for invading Iraq was based on fraud," said Rebecca Rotzler, co-chair of the Green Party's Peace Action Committee. "All of the reasons for invasion that Mr. Bush listed in his January 28, 2003 State of the Union address -- Iraqi WMDs, collusion between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, evidence that Saddam had sought nuclear weapons materials from Africa, nuclear aluminum rods, Iraq's supposed threat to the U.S. and to other nations -- are now known to be false. The Downing Street Memo shows that the intelligence supporting an invasion was fixed, with the complicity of the Bush and Blair administrations as early as July 2002."
Green Party leaders also noted that Ahmed Chalabi, whose false testimony to U.S. intelligence officials on Iraqi WMDs formed much of the basis of the claim that Saddam Hussein was an international threat, is now serving as interim Iraqi Oil Minister, with the Bush Administration's approval; and that John Bolton, now under consideration for appointment as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., repeatedly manipulated intelligence and lied to the U.S. media and the U.N. about Iraqi weapons materials.
"Americans should be protesting in every way possible against the continued occupation of Iraq, and for impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney," said Jake Schneider, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States. "But this has also been a bipartisan war all along, and every Democrat and Republican in Congress who has supported it despite evidence of deceit from the very beginning also deserves removal from office."
For more information on the Green Party, see
www.gp.org, or contact Green Party of the United States,
1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404,
Washington, DC 20009,
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN.
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