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That April 2001 report, “Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,” was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney.

In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world’s second largest oil reserves.

“Iraq remains a de-stabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East,” the report said.

“Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the U.S. should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments.”

Last update: Thursday, July 03, 2008

When the Iraq Survey Group released a long-awaited report back in October 2004, it concluded that Iraq had eliminated its weapons programs in the 1990s, but determined that Saddam Hussein had manipulated the United Nation’s oil-for-food program by siphoning off billions of dollars from the venture that may have been used to fund assault weapons and luxury goods.

“Through secret government-to-government trade agreements, Saddam Hussein's government earned more than $7.5 billion,” the report says. “At the same time, by demanding kickbacks from foreign companies that received oil or that supplied consumer goods, Iraq received at least $2 billion more to spend on weapons or on Saddam's extravagant palaces.”

The oil-for-food program was supervised by the U.N. and ran from 1996 until the U.S. led invasion in March 2003. The oil-for-food program was designed to alleviate the toll economic sanctions had on Iraqi citizens by allowing limited quantities of oil to be sold to buy food and medicine.

On Tuesday, the Iraqi government announced that it hired a Texas-based law firm to pursue as much as $10 billion in legal remedies against mega corporations such as Chevron Corp, and pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, for defrauding the country of food and medical provisions while Saddam Hussein was in power.

But one company that helped Saddam Hussein exploit the oil-for-food program in the mid-1990s that wasn’t identified as a possible defendant in a lawsuit is Halliburton Corp, and the person at the helm of oil-field services corporation at the time of the oil-for-food scheme was Vice President Dick Cheney.

Last update: Thursday, July 03, 2008

Recently, former Los Angeles County prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi gave an impassioned presentation to a standing-room only audience about explosive charges he has made in a newly published book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, in which he contends that there is a clear-cut case to bring charges against President Bush for murder for launching a war on false pretenses and subsequently causing the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers.

Bugliosi's two-hour discussion centered around the legal theories he discussed in his book.

Part 1 (19:45)

"In my book... I present evidence that proves beyond all reasonable doubt that George Bush took this nation to war on a lie, under false pretenses, and therefore under the law is guilty of murder for the deaths of over 4,000 young American soldiers who died so far in this war," Bugliosi said.

Last update: Tuesday, July 01, 2008

In 2002, Scott Ritter, the former Chief United Nations Weapons Inspector In Iraq, publicly accused the Bush administration of lying to Congress and the public about assertions that Iraq was hiding a chemical and biological weapons arsenal.

By speaking out publicly, Ritter emerged as one of the most prominent whistleblowers since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in the early 1970s.

Ritter’s criticisms about the Bush administration’s flawed prewar Iraq intelligence have been borne out by numerous investigations and reports, including one recently published by the Senate Armed Services Committee that found President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and other senior administration officials knowingly lied about the threat Iraq posed to the United States.

Now Ritter, who was a Marine Corps intelligence officer for 12 years, is speaking out about what he sees as history repeating itself regarding U.S. policy toward Iran and the inevitability of a U.S.-led attack on the country, which he believes will happen prior to a new president being sworn into office in January 2009.

Last update: Sunday, June 29, 2008

Last update: Sunday, June 29, 2008

It is entirely possible to be a reasonably well-informed citizen of the United States and not know that on June 9, 2008, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D. Ohio) took to the floor of the House of Representatives and spent over four hours reading thirty-five Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush.

Even worse, it is not merely possible, but likely, that the vast majority of people who have been more than willing to ignore or ridicule those charges have not read them. Or, if they have read them, they have found the allegations and citations so overwhelming they just switch off their minds. Perhaps surprisingly, I understand this phenomenon quite well. I spent many years attempting to present complex and disturbing information to people in the context of criminal indictments and cases. And the truth is that legal documents are confusing to everyone, including lawyers. Much as I hate to admit it, for example, I have never been able to plow through our family will, so for all I know, our very meager estate has been designated by my husband to be held in trust for the care and feeding of ferrets.

But the House Judiciary Committee does not, of course, have the luxury of being so cavalier. For the past seven years, we have watched as evidence of President Bush’s deceit, contempt of Congress and abuse of power has piled up like rank seaweed on a beach. We cannot, in this summer of 2008, simply step around it and pretend it’s not there. There is a constitutional process to follow and we must follow it. If the threat of terrorism is not a reason to disregard the constitution – and it is not – then surely neither is an election.

So I have decided to offer some help, a modest contribution in the one area I know best: the presentation of charges. It’s a Three-Part Guide to the Articles of Impeachment. There is nothing fancy here -- no sarcasm, no vitriol and no cynicism. Part I is a chart that itemizes the Articles of Impeachment with a subheading and a longer description. Part II is also a chart which itemizes U.S. and international laws that are implicated by the charges in the Articles of Impeachment. (Quite properly, not every impeachable offense is based on a specific legal violation.) In Part III I present an opening statement setting forth - just as a prosecutor would do before a trial -what the evidence would show with regard to these allegations.

Forward them around, if you would. At the very least – before we decide to ignore it --we should all clearly and unflinchingly apprehend the nature and scope of this executive misconduct and its consequent human misery and damage to our country.

Part I: http://www.pubrecord.org/docs/vega/kucinich-bush-articles-of-impeachment.pdf

Part II: http://www.pubrecord.org/docs/vega/kucinich-bush-articles-of-impeachment-violations.pdf

I want to speak to you about the Articles of Impeachment Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced on June 9, 2008.  There are, as you know, thirty-five of them and they allege violations of just about as many U.S. and international laws.

When I first sat down to write this statement, I planned to discuss the evidence and the law that relates to some of those violations, just as I would do if I were presenting a case to a jury at the beginning of a trial. But I’ve decided not to do that.  Instead, I am going to follow the wise counsel Abigail Adams gave to her husband John and just speak plainly.   

I believe that most of you know what the evidence would show.  

Last update: Friday, June 27, 2008