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Impeach Dick Cheney
Statement by Howie Hawkins, Green Party Candidate for US Senate,
for the Anti-Cheney Demonstration in Utica |
For More Information:
Howie Hawkins, (315) 425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org
Sally Kim, (518) 364-2968, green_sallyk@yahoo.com
Vice-President Dick Cheney should be impeached by Congress, along with President Bush, for lying and lawbreaking. The Articles of Impeachment should cover for areas of high crimes and misdemeanors: warrantless surveillance, misleading Congress on the reasons for the Iraq war, violating laws against torture, and subverting the Constitution's separation of powers
Cheney provided false information to the American public and Congress as reasons for invading Iraq and then actively promoted war crimes involving the use of torture in carrying out the occupation of Iraq. He has violated the prohibition against wars of aggression in Chapter 1, Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. His role in other potential criminal activity prior to and since becoming Vice-President also merits investigation. The United States must uphold the principle that no one is above the law.
The silence of the Democratic leadership on the question of impeachment is deafening. When fundraising letters to the Republican base in May stated that a Democratic House would impeach President Bush, the Democrat’s Minority Leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, told the Democratic Caucus in the House that “impeachment is off the table.” Hillary Clinton has criticized Cheney for his support for torture by US military and intelligence operations, but has not called for holding Cheney to account through impeachment proceedings.
Nevertheless, public support for impeachment is growing. A recent poll by Zogby International asked people what would restore their trust in government. The number one response was "personnel changes/impeachment proceedings." Numerous other national polls have found strong support for impeachment. Polls by Ipsos, Zogby, and American Research Group have found support for impeachment between 43% and 53%.
Here are some of the facts we know about Cheney’s lies and law breaking.
The Occupation of Iraq: Vice-President Cheney was fixated on regime change in Iraq long before he was elected Vice-President. As Secretary of Defense under the first President Bush, Cheney fought to maintain the Pentagon's Cold War footing even as the Soviet Union collapsed. He argued that the United States should retain the capacity to launch preemptive wars against other nations. Cheney was a major advocate for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but his proposals for imposing "regime change" on Iraq were so incompetent that General Norman Schwarzkopf summarily rejected them.
From the first day of taking office as Vice-President, Cheney was "already planning the next war in Iraq and the shape of a post-Saddam country," according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. Charging that Saddam had "resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," Cheney warned a 2002 Veterans of Foreign Wars convention that, "armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten American friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."
Vice-President Cheney and a small group of other neocons took over the government's foreign and military policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that have ended up weakening and isolating the United States in international standing. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, stated there "was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made."
As they made clear in a September 2000 paper by Project for a New American Century called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” the neocons were hoping for a surprise attack like Pearl Harbor as catalyst for a more aggressive US military posture toward such countries as Iraq. The purpose of the Iraq invasion and occupation was to seize Iraqi oil fields and to militarily dominate the Middle East. Although questions remain unanswered about 9/11, assertions that the attack was connected to Iraq made repeatedly by the administration are false according to their own intelligence reports.
The reasons cited by the Bush administration for their invasion of Iraq were false. There were no weapons of mass destruction, nor any credible nuclear threat. Cheney has been widely criticized for his unprecedented interference with the CIA data collection efforts, including regularly visiting their headquarters to challenge mid-level analysts on their conclusions. CIA officers who were there at the time say the message was clear: Cheney wanted evidence to back his argument that Iraq was a threat.
In 2003 at his State of the Union Address, President Bush said, "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." When this allegation was shown to be suspect and not sufficiently credible, the administration engaged in a campaign to control the damage even if it meant revealing classified information. Uranium from Africa, specifically Niger, had been discredited in part by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's findings during a trip to Niger in late February of 2002. So far the only person indicted in the Valerie Plame-Wilson CIA leak case is Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff. President Bush allegedly told the special prosecutor he had directed Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by Wilson that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq. Bush also told federal prosecutors that he had directed Cheney to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson, who wrote an op-ed piece in July 2003 in the New York Times critical of the administration and its justification for the war.
Torture: Cheney has promoted the use of torture, actively lobbying Senators to agree to an amendment exempting the CIA from restrictions on prisoner abuse. Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff, has stated that with respect to authorization of the use of torture, "It was clear to me there that there was a visible audit trail from the Vice President's office through the Secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the field." The White House approved harsh interrogation techniques including "waterboarding," or simulated drowning; mock execution; and the deliberate withholding of pain medication.
In October 2005 the Washington Post editorialized that Cheney had become an open advocate of torture, leading an unprecedented lobbying effort to convince Congress to authorize human rights abuses by Americans and enable the CIA to engage in "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners despite being banned by an international treaty negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the United States.
Corporate Corruption: Cheney has been at the center of the rampant corruption that permeates the Bush administration. Before becoming Vice President, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, a Texas-based oil, construction and military support conglomerate. It has been accused of cost overruns, tax avoidance, and 'cooking the books.' Halliburton has led corporate profiteers in plundering Iraq and defrauding American taxpayers, receiving over ten billion dollars in contracts that are often no-bid, cost-plus. While Cheney was head of Halliburton, the company's subsidiaries violated American laws designed to prevent dealings with Iraq. Halliburton played a major role in helping Iraq repair its oil fields during the mid-1990s. That allowed Saddam to siphon off funds from the United Nations oil-for-food program. As Vice President, he continues to receive annual payments of deferred salary of over $150,000 from the company and 433,333 shares of unexercised stock options.
The Cheney-Halliburton story is the classic military-industrial revolving door. As Secretary of Defense under Bush I, Cheney paid Kellogg Brown and Root $3.9 million to report on how private companies could help the U.S. Army while simultaneously cutting hundreds of thousands of Army jobs. Then Brown and Root won a five-year contract to provide logistics for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers all over the globe. In 1995, Cheney became CEO and Halliburton jumped from 73rd to 18th on the Pentagon's list of top contractors, benefiting from at least $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans.
In the spring of 2001 when the California energy emergency inspired demands for government action, Enron CEO Kenneth Lay met with Cheney to seek his assistance in opposing federal price caps. Lay and his co-conspirators of course had been major contributors to the Bush-Cheney ticket. While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) eventually did step in with price caps, Cheney consistently helped Enron, supporting candidates Enron chose for key regulatory positions, intervening in the affairs of a foreign government and the structuring of a super-secret energy policy taskforce to allow Enron and other corporations to effectively set policy.
Energy Policy: Ten days after becoming Vice-President, Cheney convened a super secret task force to write America's energy policy. According to the General Accounting Office, senior officials with the Department of Energy met "numerous times" with energy companies and trade associations to provide advice to Cheney's energy task force. Those companies and trade associations included Bechtel, Chevron, the Coal Council, Kerr-McGee, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the National Mining Association, General Motors, the National Petroleum Council, and the energy lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers. In addition, the Secretary of Energy discussed national energy policy with chief executive officers of petroleum, electricity, nuclear, coal, chemical, and natural gas companies. Many of these companies gave large campaign contributions to Bush/Cheney 2000. (See http://www.opensecrets.org/alerts/v6/alertv6_49.asp.)
Prior bad acts: While in Congress, Cheney was a vocal advocate for President Reagan's illegal wars in Central America. He was Reagan's principal defender in Congress once Iran Contra-gate was exposed, arguing that that those who sought to hold the Reagan administration accountable for illegal acts in Latin America were "prepared to undermine the presidency" and the ability of future presidents to defend the United States. He also regularly voted against House resolutions calling for the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners in South Africa.
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 *Website by David Doonan, Labor Donated to Hawkins for Senate Campaign* |
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