Expanded in light of Bush AGAIN linking Iraq and 9/11.

http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/11/911-lies-another-basis-for-impeachment.html

"Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda".

In addition, a Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary issued in February 2002 by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy.

And yet Bush, Cheney and other top administration officials claimed and continue to claim that Saddam was behind 9/11. See this analysis. Indeed, Bush administration officials apparently swore in a lawsuit that Saddam was behind 9/11.

Indeed, President Bush's March 18, 2003 letter to Congress authorizing the use of force against Iraq, includes the following paragraph.

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Therefore, Bush expressly justified the Iraq war to Congress by representing that Iraq planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 9/11 attacks.

Grounds for impeachment based on 9-11 lies are just as important as those based on lies regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Why? Because the administration's false claims about Saddam and 9/11 helped convince a large portion of the American public to support the invasion of Iraq. While the focus now may be on false WMD claims, it is important to remember that, at the time, the Saddam-911 link was at least as important in many people's minds as a reason to invade Iraq.

Moreover, the trauma of September 11, 2001 is what galvanized many Americans to rally around the Bush administration in general, to close ranks in time of peril, and to give Bush his "mandate" (putting questions of election fraud to the side). Ever since that terrible day, the American people have been terrified, and thus irrational, based upon the trauma of the vicious attacks. Since most Americans believe that the bad guys are "out there" and are about to get us unless we have a strong leader to fight them, they will not and CANNOT make any logical decisions about any other foreign or domestic issues until "we get the bad guys."

Indeed, the WMD hoax probably would not have worked if it wasn't for the anti-Arab hysteria after September 11th. And the government policy of torture would not have been tolerated if we weren't misled into thinking that Saddam and Al-Qaeda had formed an unholy, all-powerful alliance on 9/11, and had to be stopped at any cost. Thus, I would argue that the Saddam-911 deception was a necessary precursor to the administration's WMD lies and torture policies.

And polls show that almost 90% of the troops in Iraq are under the mistaken belief that the U.S. mission in that country is “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks.” In other words, our kids are fighting and dying because of this lie.

Imagine, if you would, that you were a citizen in Germany right after the Reichstag fire had occurred. (As you might know, the Reichstag fire was the burning down of the German parliament building by Hitler's men, which was then blamed on the communists in order to justify wars against neighboring countries.) Do you believe you could have stopped the government from torturing communists after the Reichstag fire, by convincing people that Germans are a good people who do not torture others? Do you think that you could have prevented the spread of disinformation about the hostile intentions and military capabilities of their countries? I believe not, without first exposing that the Reichstag fire -- the sole event which allowed the German parliament and other institutions to hand Hitler total power. The Germans were in shock, and rallied around their "strong" leader.

Americans are crazed by the fear of Arab terrorists just like Germans were terrified of communist terrorists. Both peoples have handed over all of their power to leaders in order to buy an imaginary security.

The Nazis might have been brought to justice well before the Nuremberg trials if the Reichstag hoax had been exposed at the time.

But Can They Really Be Impeached for 9/11 Lies?

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has stated that "Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda and concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment to create a climate of fear and hatred and destroy opposition to his war goals" is grounds for impeachment (see paragraph 10) and see paragraph 7 here ("Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information . . . .")

Lying about Saddam's connection to 9/11 may thus be an impeachable offense.

Postscript: On December 16, 2005, Bush admitted "There was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the attack of 9/11" (and see this video). However, Bush and Cheney continue to frequently invoke 9/11 as justification for the Iraq war.

A bipartisan Senate Report from 2006 found that Bush misled the press on Iraq link to Al-Qaeda

On April 24, 2007, Congressman Kucinich submitted articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney which include Cheney's false linkage of Iraq and 9/11.

It has also just been revealed that 5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam". This confirms previous reports that hours after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld said "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not." And at 2:40 p.m. on September 11th, in a memorandum of discussions between top administration officials, several lines below the statement "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [that is, Saddam Hussein] at same time", is the statement "Hard to get a good case." In other words, top officials knew that there wasn't a good case that Hussein was behind 9/11, but they wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to justify war with Iraq anyway.

This article does not discuss the evidence that elements of the U.S. government actually carried out or aided and abetted the 9/11 attacks themselves. However, if articles of impeachment were filed concerning the administration's lies about 9/11, then the truth of who actually carried out the 9/11 attacks would be relevant, and a door opened to examine such evidence.