Cheney still may be Investigated

Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowski's, Chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee is quoted by Politico:

“The House Intelligence Committee will move forward with a full investigation that will explore certain CIA programs and the core issue of how the committee is kept informed,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), the committee’s chairwoman, announced in a statement issued Friday evening.

“My subcommittee will take the lead on significant portions of the investigation; we will explore instances where the Congress was not informed in a timely way and situations in which laws may have been broken.”

And from Raw Story:

Cheney tried to keep program secret

US former vice president Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to withhold information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years, The New York Times reported on its website Saturday.

Central Intelligence Agency chief Leon Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence on June 23, revealed Cheney’s role in a closed briefing a day later to the Senate and House intelligence committees, the Times said, citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

“Because this program never went fully operational and hadn’t been briefed as Panetta thought it should have been, his decision to kill it was neither difficult nor controversial,” an intelligence official told the newspaper, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There's a BIG Update to this CIA story:

From the AP:

Judge rules CIA committed fraud in court

By NEDRA PICKLER (AP) – 45 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ruled that CIA officials committed fraud to protect a former covert agent against a lawsuit.

According to court documents unsealed Monday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth referred one CIA attorney for disciplinary action. The judge also is considering sanctions against five other current and former CIA employees, including former CIA Director George Tenet.

My greatest fear, Bush will attack Iran

Two news stories have me really concerned. These articles plus all the intel, recently, about a possible attack by Al Qaeda or other terrorists here in the United States.

Lets start with this from Think Progress:

On Heels Of Senate’s Iran Vote, Brownback Declared I’m Ready To Strike Iran

On Wednesday, the Senate voted 97-0 to pass a resolution sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to censure Iran “for what it said was complicity in the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.” The resolution required the Bush administration to regularly report to Congress on Iran’s role in Iraq.

While the resolution explicitly rejected authorization for immediate military action, the gist of the resolution declared Iran is participating in acts of war against the United States, thereby laying the foundation for a confrontation with Iran. Newshoggers wrote that the resolution may provide the “political cover for launching a war.”

Validating the concern many felt, Sen. Sam Brownback appeared on Fox News shortly after the vote and declared he was ready to preemptively strike Iran. Host Sean Hannity asked Brownback, “There’s probably going to come a point for the next president that they’re going to have to determine whether to go out and have that preemptive strike. And you’re ready and would be ready to do that?”

“Yes, I am, and I think we have to be,” Brownback answered. “Sean, if we’re going to be serious about this fight, and we’re in this fight, and probably for a generation. We’re probably in this fight for a generation.” Watch it:

The Senate voted 97 to 0 to pass a resolution by Sen. Lieberman to censure Iran! And on top of this story comes one from the UK's Guardian:

Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran


· Military solution back in favour as Rice loses out
· President 'not prepared to leave conflict unresolved'

Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger
Monday July 16, 2007
The Guardian

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."

The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.

Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.

"The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action," Mr Cronin said. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself."

Almost half of the US's 277 warships are stationed close to Iran, including two aircraft carrier groups. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise left Virginia last week for the Gulf. A Pentagon spokesman said it was to replace the USS Nimitz and there would be no overlap that would mean three carriers in Gulf at the same time.

No decision on military action is expected until next year. In the meantime, the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route.

There is no way this country can take on another war. We don't have enough military for three wars and it would be a mistake to attack Iran without giving diplomacy a chance. And I worry about Russian and China if Bush does this. It's time to impeach.

UPDATE: From Digby's blog:

If that isn't enough of a reason to have voted this amendment to oblivion, consider what Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February:


If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Moyers Journal

Tonight I watched Moyers Journal, with Bill Moyers, on PBS. The show was on impeachment. Moyers had two great guests, John Nichols of the Nation and Bruce Stein who is a constitutional lawyer and a conservative. Here's some information about the show from the PBS Web Site and also some information on the two guests:

Tough Talk on Impeachment

July 13, 2007

A public opinion poll from the American Research Group recently reported that more than four in ten Americans — 45% — favor impeachment hearings for President Bush and more than half — 54% — favored impeachment for Vice President Cheney.

Unhappiness about the war in Iraq isn't the only cause of the unsettled feelings of the electorate. Recent events like President Bush's pardoning of Scooter Libby, the refusal of Vice President Cheney's office to surrender emails under subpoena to Congress and the President's prohibition of testimony of former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers in front of the House Judiciary Committee have caused unease over claims of "executive privilege." In addition, many of the White House anti-terror initiatives and procedures — from the status of "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo to warrantless wiretapping — have come under legal scrutiny in Congress and the courts.

Bill Moyers gets perspective on the role of impeachment in American political life from Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and THE NATION's John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT.

"The founding fathers expected an executive who tried to overreach and expected the executive would be hampered and curtailed by the legislative branch... They [Congress] have basically renounced — walked away from their responsibility to oversee and check." — Bruce Fein


"On January 20th, 2009, if George Bush and Dick Cheney are not appropriately held to account this Administration will hand off a toolbox with more powers than any President has ever had, more powers than the founders could have imagined. And that box may be handed to Hillary Clinton or it may be handed to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or someone else. But whoever gets it, one of the things we know about power is that people don't give away the tools." — John Nichols

Bruce Fein
Bruce Fein is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on Constitutional law. Graduating from Harvard Law School in 1972, Fein became the assistant director of the Office of Legal Policy in the U.S. Department of Justice. Shortly after that, Fein became the associate deputy attorney general under former President Ronald Reagan.
His political law career would take him to various outlets, including general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, followed by an appointment as research director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran. Mr. Fein has been an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, a resident scholar at the Heritage Foundation, a lecturer at the Bookings Institute, and an adjunct professor at George Washington University.

Fein has also penned a number of volumes on United States Constitution, Supreme Court, and international law, as well as assisted three dozen countries in constitutional revision, including Russia, Spain, South Africa, Iraq, Cyprus, and Mozambique.

Fein currently writes weekly columns for THE WASHINGTON TIMES and CAPITOL LEADER, and a bi-weekly column for the LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER devoted to legal and international affairs.

Recently, Fein has been in the national spotlight after his editorial in the online newsmagazine SLATE called for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, in which he outlines the various cases against the Vice President. Fein also testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee on June 27, 2007 about President Bush's use of "signing statement."

According to Fein, Cheney has:
* Asserted Presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes.

* Claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the President's say-so alone.

* Initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists.

* Championed a Presidential power to torture in contravention of federal statutes and treaties.

*Engineered the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance program targeting American citizens on American soil in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

* Orchestrated the invocation of executive privilege to conceal from Congress secret spying programs to gather foreign intelligence, and their legal justifications.

* Summoned the privilege to refuse to disclose his consulting of business executives in conjunction with his Energy Task Force.

* Retaliated against Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame, through chief of staff Scooter Libby, for questioning the administration's evidence of weapons of mass destruction as justification for invading Iraq. (Read Fein's SLATE article)

John Nichols
John Nichols, author and political journalist has been writing the "Online Beat" for THE NATION magazine since 1999. Nichols also serves as Washington correspondent for THE NATION, as well as the associate editor of the CAPITAL TIMES, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin and a contributing writer for THE PROGRESSIVE and IN THESE TIMES.

Along with fellow author Robert McChesney, Nichols co-founded the media-reform group Free Press. Nichols has also authored several books, including JEWS FOR BUCHANAN, which analyzed the recount vote of 2000, and DICK: THE MAN WHO IS PRESIDENT, his best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Nichols most recent book, THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT, argues that impeachment is an essential instrument of America's democratic system. Nichols' argument also bases the power of impeachment in the hands of the people, rather than the congress. In his recent article, "In Praise of Impeachment," Nichols argues "While the Constitution handed Congress the power to officially check such despotism, Jefferson and his colleagues fully expected the American people to be the champions of the application of the rule of law to an errant executive."

The show should be up soon as a video podcast. If you have a chance, please watch it.

UPDATE: Here's the link to Watch Bill Moyers Journal.



Impeachment is now, I think, a necessity. The powers this admin has taken for the President and the Vice-President is, as Barbara Boxer said "This is as close as we’ve ever come to a dictatorship".

Here's more of what she said to Ed Schultz on his radio show:

BOXER: Yeah. I mean, you left out a bunch of things — spying on citizens without a warrant, going around FISA, on and on. Look, I have always said it should be on the table. Ed, I’ve always said it. I was on a book tour and I ran into John Dean of Watergate fame. He was on the book tour that I was on, for his book. And it was right after we discovered that the administration was spying on our people without a warrant. And he just said, he looked at me and basically just said, as far as he could see, unless there was some explanation for this, this was impeachable.

I’ve always said that you need to keep it on the table, and you need to look at these things, because now people are dying because of this administration. That’s the truth. And they won’t change course. They are ignoring the Congress. They keep signing these signing statements which mean that he’s decided not to enforce the law. This is as close as we’ve ever come to a dictatorship. When you have a situation where Congress is stepped on, that means the American people are stepped on. So I don’t think you can take anything off the table. Because in fact the Constitution doesn’t permit us to take these things off the table.

To give this much power to future presidents is like giving our country away. This administration swore to protect our constitution but instead they tore it up!

Leahy: "They've chosen confrontation rather than compromise or cooperation,"

Looks like Leahy will follow up on the subpoenas. The white House is claiming Executive Privilege, but there's a catch to that.

From the AP:

Patrick Leahy ready to fight White House
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jul 1, 3:57 PM ET

The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday he was ready to go to court if the White House resiPsted congressional subpoenas for information on the firing of federal prosecutors.

"If they don't cooperate, yes I'd go that far," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He was asked in a broadcast interview whether he would seek a congressional vote on contempt citations if President Bush did not comply. That move would push the matter to court.

"They've chosen confrontation rather than compromise or cooperation," Leahy said. "The bottom line on this U.S. attorneys' investigation is that we have people manipulating law enforcement. Law enforcement can't be partisan."

At issue is whether the White House exerted undue political influence in the Justice Department's firing of prosecutors. Leahy's hardening stance is pushing the Democratic-led investigation ever closer to a constitutional showdown over executive power and Congress' right to oversight.

The White House accused the committee of overreaching.

"After thousands of pages of documents, interviews and testimony by Justice Department officials, it's clear that there's simply no merit for this overreach," presidential spokesman Tony Fratto said.

He said Leahy "is seeking access to candid and confidential deliberations from the president's advisers — an intrusion he would never subject his own staff to. We have gone to great lengths to accommodate the committee in their oversight responsibilities."

Separately, the Senate has subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office for documents related to the administration's legal basis for conducting warrant-free eavesdropping on people in the United States.

Leahy and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who heads the House Judiciary Committee, have demanded a White House explanation by July 9 as to its grounds for claiming executive privilege in refusing to turn over additional documents.

The two lawmakers say that regardless of whether the White House meets the deadline, they would begin acting to enforce the subpoenas as appropriate under the law.

Legal experts have been somewhat divided over the scope of a president's power to shield information and ensure candid advice from top aides. The dispute, if it does head to court, could take months and ultimately outlast the remaining term of Bush's presidency, which ends in January 2009.

Last week, White House counsel Fred Fielding said Bush was claiming executive privilege. Bush also was invoking the privilege to prevent Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, the former political director, from testifying publicly under oath. More Here.

But here's the issue..."The president and the vice president are not above the law any more than you and I are," Leahy said.

And that is the crux of the matter with this administration. They think they are above the law and try to rig the rules to keep it that way. No other President and his admin have ever pushed this far into becoming close to a dictatorship!

11. The number of Dems that have signed onto the Impeach Cheney Resolution

The newest signer of Dennis Kucinich's resolution is Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA).

From Raw Story:

Washington Democrat adds voice to Cheney impeachment drive
Michael Roston
Published: Friday June 29, 2007

A Democratic Congressman from Washington state became the latest Member of Congress to add his voice to the calls for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. The move came the same night that House Democrats failed to unite their party around a measure to cut the funding for the Office of the Vice President in response to Cheney's declaration that his office was not a part of the executive branch.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) declared in an address on the House floor Thursday night that he was in favor of impeaching the vice president.

"It is time for a new exit strategy, one that removes the Vice President of the United States from office, voluntarily, if he chooses, but by impeachment if he stonewalls," said the Seattle Democrat and Progressive Caucus member. "I have struggled mightily with this matter for a long time...Since the President permits the flagrant disregard of the Constitution, it is up to the Congress to act and defend the American people. With each new revelation, America has seen only glints of what has been done totally in secret."

McDermott said that he was adding his name to H.Res. 333, the Articles of Impeachment introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and already supported by nine additional Congress members. But he also made it clear that he was concerned with crimes beyond those called out in the Ohio Democrat's legislation.

"The Vice President holds himself accountable to no one," Rep. McDermott argued. "He ordered the Secret Service to destroy visitors logs, and we have learned in the Washington Post recently, that the Vice President circumvented every check and balance inside the White House to force through his own agenda, to spy on Americans through illegal wire traps, creating the gulag at Guantanamo, and subverting civil liberties and free speech at every turn."

Note: Text and video of McDermott's speech are available at the Congressman's website.

How Nancy pelosi responded to this:

In a conference call on Thursday afternoon, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made it clear that the decisions of Democrats like McDermott were not enough to change her mind on impeachment, which she continued to insist was off the table.

"It's a choice that has to be made," she said. "I made a decision...one year ago that impeachment was something we could not be successful with, and that would take up the time we needed to do some positive things to establish a record of our priorities and their shortcomings. The president isn't worth impeaching. If it were the beginning of his term, people might think of it differently, but he's at the end of his term...the last two years of his term, we just want to be rid of him."

I think it is time to write Rep. Pelosi and explain to her the reason we need to impeach him. She has her web site, the Gavel or you can address it in an email or letter by going to her personal site here.

John Dean's new post on Cheney

I've been waiting for this because I knew John Dean would have to comment on Cheney. After he appeared on the Countdown with Kieth Olbermann, it was only a matter of time.

From Dean's post at Findlaw:

The Misunderestimated Mr. Cheney:
The Vice President's Record of Willfully Violating the Law, And Wrongly Claiming Authority to Do So
By JOHN W. DEAN

Vice President Dick Cheney has regularly claimed that he is above the law, but until recently he has not offered any explanation of why.

In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a law that Cheney believes does apply to him, whether that law be major and minor. For example, he has claimed that most of the laws passed in the aftermath of Watergate were unconstitutional, and thus implicitly inapplicable. His office oversees signing statements claiming countless new laws will not be honored except insofar as the President's extremely narrow interpretation allows. He does not believe the War Powers Act should be honored by the President. Nor, in his view, should the President be bothered with laws like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In fact, it appears Cheney has actively encouraged defiance of such laws by the Bush Administration.

For Cheney, the Geneva Conventions - considered among the nation's most important treaties -- are but quaint relics that can be ignored. Thus, he publicly embraced their violation when, on an Idaho talk radio program, he said he was not troubled in the slightest by our forces using "waterboarding" -- the simulated drowning of detainees to force them to talk. There are serious questions as to whether Cheney himself has also conspired to violate the War Crimes Act, which can be a capital crime.

A man who can so easily disregard the War Powers Act, FISA, the Geneva Conventions, and the War Crimes Act is merely flicking fleas when it comes to complying with laws like the Presidential Records Act, which requires him to keep records. Yet as CNN and other news organizations have reported, Cheney ordered the destruction of the visitor logs to his residence. These, of course, are presidential records the law requires him to preserve and protect. (Indeed, neighbors of the Vice President were surprised when, in the past, a truck for a document shredding service would regularly visit the Vice President's residence at the Naval Observatory.)

Most recently, the Vice President has refused to comply with Executive Order 12958,> as amended by his boss, George W. Bush. These orders were issued to implement the law adopted by Congress in 1995 to clarify the classification and protection of national security information.

Most interesting in Cheney's defiance is his absolutely absurd explanation of why the law is not applicable to him or his staff.

snip

When Cheney was widely ridiculed by humorists, cartoonists, pundits, commentators and several members of Congress for his claim of not being an "entity within the executive branch," the Vice President's chief of staff and counsel >David Addington responded by asserting that the Vice President is not subject to the order because he is not an "agency" as defined by the order. (Addington thus effectively dropped the claim that the Vice President is not an "entity.")

However, Addington does not cite any authority or language for his new claim that the Vice President is not an "agency." In fact, there is none. To the contrary, the order controlling national security classification states exactly the opposite of what Addington claims.

Executive Order 12958 states that the term "Agency" means any "Executive agency," as defined in the statutory language found at 5 U.S.C. 105, and it includes "any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information." An entity is any "body" or "unit" or "thing" within the executive branch, and to claim the Vice President's office is none of these is an insult to common sense. So is Addington's claim that the Office of Vice President is not an agency under the law.

Section 105 of Title 5 of the United States Code states that an "'Executive agency' means an … independent establishment" within the executive branch. Independent establishments are defined by Section 104 as "an establishment in the executive branch … which is not an Executive department [which are listed in Section 101, and include the Departments of State, Treasury, Justice, etc.], military department, Government corporation, or part thereof, or part of an independent establishment."

The Justice Department issued an >opinion in 1994 that the Vice President was not an "agency" under the Freedom of Information Act. That opinion was largely based on the Supreme Court ruling, in Kissinger v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, that "agency" does not cover "the President's immediate personal staff or units in the Executive Office whose sole function is to advise and assist the President."

However, the agency definition in E.O. 12985 is very different from that in the Freedom of Information Act. If, as Addington claims, E.O. 12985 was intended to exempt the Vice President's office, why did it not so state? Or, why did Bush not exempt the Vice President when he >amended that order in July 2005?

Cheney's claim his office is neither an entity nor agency defies logic, but it is not surprising since he continues also to claim, with absolutely no evidence to support his claim, that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 and that terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi set up an al Qaeda operation in Iraq.

There's much more here. And this is a must read.

In Cheney's own words show he counts self part of executive branch

Make up your mind Cheney!!!

From Government Executive .com

Cheney's words show he counts self part of executive branchBy Keith Koffler CongressDaily June 29, 2007 Vice President Dick Cheney has viewed himself as part of the executive branch of government, according to transcripts of public statements, calling into question a statement by an aide that has been widely seen as a suggestion he is not.

Cheney has been ridiculed and criticized in recent days because of what has been interpreted as a claim that he does not have to comply with an executive order on classified information because he is not in the executive branch. The White House has asserted that the issue is moot, saying the way the order is written makes clear that the president did not intend it to apply to the vice president.

White House officials this week have repeatedly declined to declare Cheney a member of the executive branch, instead characterizing debate over his role as an intriguing constitutional question.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino noted that Cheney receives his paycheck from the Senate, over which he officially presides. But she refused to offer an opinion on which branch of government holds the vice president, saying instead that he has "legislative and executive functions."

But the vice president himself has not always been so fuzzy on the matter.
Cheney did once note he is "a product of the United States Senate" and that he has no "official duties" in the executive branch. But the statement was made as an amusing entree to a political speech. He has on more serious occasions clearly indicated that he considers himself a part of the executive branch.

Speaking on April 9, 2003, to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Cheney placed himself squarely in the executive branch as he lauded a judicial ruling against efforts to obtain information about the energy task force he headed.

"I think it restored some of the legitimate authority of the executive branch, the president and the vice president, to be able to conduct their business," Cheney said.
Speaking to students in China on April 14, 2004, he explained that it was President Dwight Eisenhower who first gave the vice president an office "in the executive branch," adding "since then the responsibilities have gradually increased."

Before a meeting with congressional leaders just days after assuming the presidency, President Bush suggested the matter was, as many others believe, Civics 101.
"We're going to have a frank dialogue about a lot of issues, and I'm going to start by reminding that we know the difference between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch, but I do believe the President and the Vice President can play a part, a strong part, in helping advance an American agenda," he said.

Well there it is folks! He said it himself. Can he now go back on his words? And if he does, will he then have to disclose what happened and who attended that Energy meeting? After all, if he is not a part of the Executive Branch then that meeting he held is open to congressional investigation.

Rahm Emanuel - Defunding Cheney's Branch of Government

Here's the video of Rahm Emanuel's (D-IL) speech on the flour of the House introducing an amendment to slice funding for the vice president's office from the executive branch's budget. Watch:

Impeach Cheney? Bruce Fein thinks we should

Bruce Fein, if you remember, was the Associate Deputy Attorney General in the Reagan Era. And Mr. Fein has written a scathing Editorial, today, Calling for the impeachment of the VP Dick Cheney!

Here's some of the article from Slate:

Impeach Cheney
The vice president has run utterly amok and must be stopped.
By Bruce Fein
Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007, at 5:06 PM ET

Under Dick Cheney, the office of the vice president has been transformed from a tiny acorn into an unprecedented giant oak. In grasping and exercising presidential powers, Cheney has dulled political accountability and concocted theories for evading the law and Constitution that would have embarrassed King George III. The most recent invention we know of is the vice president's insistence that an executive order governing the handling of classified information in the executive branch does not reach his office because he also serves as president of the Senate. In other words, the vice president is a unique legislative-executive creature standing above and beyond the Constitution. The House judiciary committee should commence an impeachment inquiry. As Alexander Hamilton advised in the Federalist Papers, an impeachable offense is a political crime against the nation. Cheney's multiple crimes against the Constitution clearly qualify.

Take the vice president's preposterous theory that his office is outside the executive branch because it also exercises a legislative function. The same can be said of the president, who also exercises a legislative function in signing or vetoing bills passed by Congress. Under Cheney's bizarre reasoning, President Bush is not part of his own administration: The executive branch becomes acephalous. Today Cheney Chief of Staff David Addington refused to renounce that reasoning, instead laughably trying to diminish the importance of the legal question at issue.

The nation's first vice president, John Adams, bemoaned: "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet common fate." Vice President John Nance Garner, serving under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, lamented: "The vice presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss." In modern times, vice presidents have generally been confined to attending state funerals or to distributing blankets after earthquakes.

Then President George W. Bush outsourced the lion's share of his presidency to Vice President Cheney, and Mr. Cheney has made the most of it. Since 9/11, he has proclaimed that all checks and balances and individual liberties are subservient to the president's commander in chief powers in confronting international terrorism. Let's review the record of his abuses and excesses:

The vice president asserted presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes. The Supreme Court rebuked Cheney in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Mr. Cheney claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the president's say-so alone, a frightening power indistinguishable from King Louis XVI's execrated lettres de cachet that occasioned the storming of the Bastille. The Supreme Court repudiated Cheney in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.

There's much more and I recommend that you read it all. But lets jump to the meat of the article which is at the end:

In the end, President Bush regularly is unable to explain or defend the policies of his own administration, and that is because the heavy intellectual labor has been performed in the office of the vice president. Cheney is impeachable for his overweening power and his sneering contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law.

That's it! "his sneering contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law". Evil, conniving and contemptuous!

Senate Committee Subpoenas Cheney, Whitehouse

From Think Progress:

Breaking: Domestic Surveillance Docs Subpoenaed
The Senate Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, the Justice Department, and the National Security Council for documents related to President Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance program. AP reports:

Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council.

The committee wants documents that might shed light on internal squabbles within the administration over the legality of the program, said a congressional official speaking on condition of anonymity because the subpoenas had not been made public.

Leahy’s committee authorized the subpoenas previously as part of its sweeping investigation into how much influence the White House exerts over the Justice Department and its chief, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The probe, in its sixth month, began with an investigation into whether administration officials ordered the firings of eight federal prosecutors, for political reasons.

UPDATE: Statement from the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Chairman Leahy issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice, the Office of the White House, the Office of the Vice President and the National Security Council for documents relating to the Committee’s inquiry into the warrantless electronic surveillance program. […]

“Over the past 18 months, this Committee has made no fewer than nine formal requests to the Department of Justice and to the White House, seeking information and documents about the authorization of and legal justification for this program,” Chairman Leahy wrote in letters accompanying the subpoenas to Bush Administration officials. “All requests have been rebuffed. Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of Administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection.”

UPDATE II: The committee vote was 13-3, with all Democrats and Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Charles Grassley (R-IA) voting for subpoenas.

Talking Points Memo Video

Did you know that Dick Cheney is so hardcore about secrecy and security that he won't let the White House officials in charge of security into the West Wing? No that's not a Daily Show joke. It's actually true. Maybe that's why he's already had one (now convicted) spy caught working out of his office. And, no, I'm not talking about Scooter Libby.

-- Josh Marshall

Cheney - Environmental Enemy

The unchecked power of the Vice President these past 6 years has allowed Cheney to undo many environmental checks and contribute to Global warming and the pollution of our nation.

A new article in the Washington Post, today, shows how this was accomplished and also gives the reason why the EPA chief resigned because of Cheney.

From the WaPo:

Sue Ellen Wooldridge, the 19th-ranking Interior Department official, arrived at her desk in Room 6140 a few months after Inauguration Day 2001. A phone message awaited her.

"This is Dick Cheney," said the man on her voice mail, Wooldridge recalled in an interview. "I understand you are the person handling this Klamath situation. Please call me at -- hmm, I guess I don't know my own number. I'm over at the White House."


The vice president has intervened in many cases to undercut long-standing environmental rules for the benefit of business. Here, Cheney is photographed during an August 2004 family vacation in Moose, Wyoming. Wooldridge wrote off the message as a prank. It was not. Cheney had reached far down the chain of command, on so unexpected a point of vice presidential concern, because he had spotted a political threat arriving on Wooldridge's desk.

In Oregon, a battleground state that the Bush-Cheney ticket had lost by less than half of 1 percent, drought-stricken farmers and ranchers were about to be cut off from the irrigation water that kept their cropland and pastures green. Federal biologists said the Endangered Species Act left the government no choice: The survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake.

Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in.

First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers.

Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.

And to Christine Todd Whitmann,the head of the EPA, whom everyone blamed for the the problems of air quality after 9/11 in the area of the twin towers....

It was Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls, not the personal reasons she cited at the time, that led Christine Todd Whitman to resign as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, she said in an interview that provides the most detailed account so far of her departure.

snip

Whitman, then head of the EPA, was on vacation with her family in Colorado when her cellphone rang. The vice president was on the line, and he was clearly irked.

Why was the agency dragging its feet on easing pollution rules for aging power and oil refinery plants?, Cheney wanted to know. An industry that had contributed heavily to the Bush-Cheney campaign was clamoring for change, and the vice president told Whitman that she "hadn't moved it fast enough," she recalled.

Whitman protested, warning Cheney that the administration had to proceed cautiously. It was August 2001, just seven months into the first term. We need to "document this according to the books," she said she told him, "so we don't look like we are ramrodding something through. Because it's going to court."

But the vice president's main concern was getting it done fast, she said, and "doing it in a way that didn't hamper industry."


Enlarge PhotoCheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls led Christine Todd Whitman, shown with Secretary of State Colin Powell and Cheney aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to resign as EPA administrator. Getty ImagesAt issue was a provision of the Clean Air Act known as the New Source Review, which requires older plants that belch millions of tons of smog and soot each year to install modern pollution controls when they are refurbished in a way that increases emissions.

Industry officials complained to the White House that even when they had merely performed routine maintenance and repairs, the Clinton administration hit them with violations and multimillion-dollar lawsuits. Cheney's energy task force ordered the EPA to reconsider the rule.

Whitman had already gone several rounds with the vice president over the issue.

She and Cheney first got to know each other in one of the Nixon administration's anti-poverty agencies, working under Donald H. Rumsfeld. When Cheney offered her the job in the Bush administration, the former New Jersey governor marveled at how far both had come. But as with Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, another longtime friend who owed his Cabinet post to Cheney, Whitman's differences with the vice president would lead to her departure.

Sitting through Cheney's task force meetings, Whitman had been stunned by what she viewed as an unquestioned belief that EPA's regulations were primarily to blame for keeping companies from building new power plants. "I was upset, mad, offended that there seemed to be so much head-nodding around the table," she said.

Whitman said she had to fight "tooth and nail" to prevent Cheney's task force from handing over the job of reforming the New Source Review to the Energy Department, a battle she said she won only after appealing to White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. This was an environmental issue with major implications for air quality and health, she believed, and it shouldn't be driven by a task force primarily concerned with increasing production.

Whitman agreed that the exception for routine maintenance and repair needed to be clarified, but not in a way that undercut the ongoing Clinton-era lawsuits -- many of which had merit, she said.

Cheney listened to her arguments, and as usual didn't say much. Whitman said she also met with the president to "explain my concerns" and to offer an alternative.

She wanted to work a political trade with industry -- eliminating the New Source Review in return for support of Bush's 2002 "Clear Skies" initiative, which outlined a market-based approach to reducing emissions over time. But Clear Skies went nowhere. "There was never any follow-up," Whitman said, and moreover, there was no reason for industry to embrace even a modest pollution control initiative when the vice president was pushing to change the rules for nothing.

She decided to go back to Bush one last time. It was a crapshoot -- the EPA administrator had already been rolled by Cheney when the president reversed himself on a campaign promise to limit carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming -- so she came armed with a political argument.

Whitman said she plunked down two sets of folders filled with news clips. This one, she said, pointing to a stack about 2-1/2 inches thick, contained articles, mostly negative, about the administration's controversial proposal to suspend tough new standards governing arsenic in drinking water. And this one, she said as she pointed to a pile four or five times as thick, are the articles about the rules on aging power plants and refineries -- and the administration hadn't even done anything yet.

"If you think arsenic was bad," she recalled telling Bush, "look at what has already been written about this."

Cheney's well placed henchmen:

When the vice president got wind of a petition to list the cutthroat trout in Yellowstone National Park as a protected species, his office turned to one of his former congressional aides.

The aide, Paul Hoffman, landed his job as deputy assistant interior secretary for fish and wildlife after Cheney recommended him. In an interview, Hoffman said the vice president knew that listing the cutthroat trout would harm the recreational fishing industry in his home state of Wyoming and that he "followed the issue closely." In 2001 and again in 2006, Hoffman's agency declined to list the trout as threatened.

Hoffman also was well positioned to help his former boss with what Cheney aides said was one of the vice president's pet peeves: the Clinton-era ban on snowmobiling in national parks. "He impressed upon us that so many people enjoyed snowmobiling in the Tetons," former Cheney aide Ron Christie said.

With Cheney's encouragement, the administration lifted the ban in 2002, and Hoffman followed up in 2005 by writing a proposal to fundamentally change the way national parks are managed. That plan, which would have emphasized recreational use over conservation, attracted so much opposition from park managers and the public that the Interior Department withdrew it. Still, the Bush administration continues to press for expanded snowmobile access, despite numerous studies showing that the vehicles harm the parks' environment and polls showing majority support for the ban.

Hoffman, now in another job at the Interior Department, said Cheney never told him what to do on either issue -- he didn't have to.

"His genius," Hoffman said, is that "he builds networks and puts the right people in the right places, and then trusts them to make well-informed decisions that comport with his overall vision."

Illinosians speak out about Cheney

My home state Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Rahm Emanual chime in on Cheney. First Sen. Durbin's speech on the Senate floor about Cheney's statement that he is exempt from inspection of his Classified Information by the National Archives:





And Emanual's take on Cheney's move:

Washington, D.C. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel
issued the following statement regarding his amendment to cut funding
for the Office of the Vice President from the bill that funds the
executive branch. The legislation -- the Financial Services and General
Government Appropriations bill -- will be considered on the floor of
the House of Representatives next week.

"The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal
case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive
branch. However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot
ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President
should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice
President's funding is consistent with his legal arguments. I have
worked closely with my colleagues on this amendment and will continue
to pursue this measure in the coming days."

On Thursday, Emanuel suggested that if Cheney feels his office is not part of the executive branch "he should return the salary the American taxpayers have been paying him since January 2001, and move out of the home for which they are footing the bill."

Emanuel also released the following graphic satirizing the situation:



And Rep. Henry Waxman has written Cheney a letter. Check out his letter from the Gavel.

Dick Cheney's "own branch of government"?

You've heard by now, I am sure, about Dick Cheney's refusal to abide by the presidential order to comply with the National Archives order to have his national security documents inspected to make sure he is in compliance. He says his office is exempt from this. He also says he is not part of the executive branch of government.
That surprises me since my first question after having read this is...if he is not connected to the executive branch then he should no longer be able to claim executive privlege which he has done recently.

Here's a video clip by Keith olberman on Cheney's pronouncement of not being a part of the Executive Branch:

The vice president's office claims it doesn't have to comply with the National Archives because Dick Cheney is his own branch of government. Dana Milbank weighs in.




And here's another Olbermann video with Bush's new poll numbers that shows he is now below Carter's lowest poll. And more on Cheney's new branch of government:

Dick Cheney is claiming that because he serves a function as the President of the Senate this exempts he and his office from any laws pertaining to the executive branch, even laws Bush himself has put into place.



Not only is this admin incompetent, they are out of their minds!

Comey "discloses" more

Former deputy attorney general James Comey's response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee has disclosed more information about the Secret Surveillence Program that points directly to Cheney.

Washington Post has the story:

Official: Cheney Urged Wiretaps
Stand-In for Ashcroft Alleges Interference

Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.

The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.

Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas.

Comey said that Cheney's office later blocked the promotion of a senior Justice Department lawyer, Patrick Philbin, because of his role in raising concerns about the surveillance.

The disclosures also provide further details about the role played by then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. He visited Ashcroft in his hospital room and wrote an internal memorandum on the surveillance program shortly afterward, according to Comey's responses. Gonzales is now the attorney general. He faces possible congressional votes of no-confidence because of his handling of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

"How are you, General?" Gonzales asked Ashcroft at the hospital, according to Comey.

"Not well," replied Ashcroft, who had just undergone gallbladder surgery and was battling pancreatitis.

The new details follow Comey's gripping testimony last month about the visit by Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then President Bush's chief of staff, to Ashcroft's hospital bed on the night of March 10, 2004. The two Bush aides tried to persuade Ashcroft to renew the authorization of the NSA surveillance program, after Comey and other Justice Department officials had said they would not certify the legality of the effort, according to the testimony and other officials.

Ashcroft refused, noting that Comey had been designated as acting attorney general during his illness.

The episode prompted sharp criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, who questioned whether Gonzales and Card were attempting to take advantage of a sick man to get around legal objections from government lawyers. It is unclear who directed the two Bush aides to make the visit.

Democrats said yesterday that the new details from Comey raise further questions about the role of Cheney and other White House officials in the episode.
More at the link.

Just makes you wonder who is really president. And I've heard, lately, that Bush is not happy with Cheney. We'll see.

Cheney Blocked promotion of Patrick Philbin

According to AP:

Vice President Dick Cheney blocked the promotion of a Justice Department official involved in a bedside standoff over President Bush's eavesdropping program, a Senate committee learned Wednesday.

In a written account, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey said Cheney warned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that he would oppose the promotion of a department official who once threatened to resign over the program.

Gonzales eventually decided against trying to promote Patrick Philbin to principal deputy solicitor general, Comey said.

"I understood that someone at the White House communicated to Attorney General Gonzales that the vice president would oppose the appointment if the attorney general pursued the matter," Comey wrote. "The attorney general chose not to pursue it."

Comey responded to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt.

Comey's account provides new detail in a sprawling, Democratic-elicited story of how much the White House influences the department's operations.

Also Wednesday, the department released 39 new pages of internal e-mails and documents that partly detail efforts by the department's former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, in January 2006 to obtain authority to hire and fire political staffers.

"Ok to send up directly to me, outside of system," Goodling wrote in a Jan. 19, 2006, e-mail to Paul Corts, the assistant attorney general for administration.

The Democrats' investigation into whether the firings of eight U.S. attorneys were improperly political led to testimony last month in which Comey disclosed details of a hospital visit on March 10, 2004, to the attorney general at that time, John Ashcroft.

Democrats contend the story shows the White House's heavy-handed influence over the department, including the agency's role to periodically endorse the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program.

Schlozman testified yesterday. I'll post some of what he didn't say. But it seems there is more and more evidence of a White House involvement in all of this.

WaPo Calls Comey's Testimony Shocking

Comey's testimony was shocking. His testimony puts out there what his administration has been doing to change the rules and laws of this nation. And not for the better! It shows the secretive, underhanded way they have bent the rules to take our freedoms away. All in the name of terrorism that this admin has done very little to stop. They've gotten us into a war we should never have started in Iraq, and not really for terrorism but a vendetta against Saddam. And by doing that has raised the level and amount of terrorists.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox for now so here's some of the Washington Post's article on Comey:

Mr. Comey's Tale
A standoff at a hospital bedside speaks volumes about Attorney General Gonzales.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007; Page A14


JAMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source. The episode involved a 2004 nighttime visit to the hospital room of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff. Only the broadest outlines of this visit were previously known: that Mr. Comey, who was acting as attorney general during Mr. Ashcroft's illness, had refused to recertify the legality of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program; that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card had tried to do an end-run around Mr. Comey; that Mr. Ashcroft had rebuffed them.

Mr. Comey's vivid depiction, worthy of a Hollywood script, showed the lengths to which the administration and the man who is now attorney general were willing to go to pursue the surveillance program. First, they tried to coerce a man in intensive care -- a man so sick he had transferred the reins of power to Mr. Comey -- to grant them legal approval. Having failed, they were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation's chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice's authorization. Only in the face of the prospect of mass resignations -- Mr. Comey, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and most likely Mr. Ashcroft himself -- did the president back down.

As Mr. Comey testified, "I couldn't stay, if the administration was going to engage in conduct that the Department of Justice had said had no legal basis." The crisis was averted only when, the morning after the program was reauthorized without Justice's approval, President Bush agreed to fix whatever problem Justice had with it (the details remain classified). "We had the president's direction to do . . . what the Justice Department believed was necessary to put this matter on a footing where we could certify to its legality," Mr. Comey said.

You can read the rest at the link.

It's good to know there are still people in this government with a consience and a belief in our constitution. Mr. Comey should have alerted someone, the House or Senate, someone to what they were trying to do prior to this, but, at least he's come forward now.

Here's a bit more of the article that says it all:

The dramatic details should not obscure the bottom line: the administration's alarming willingness, championed by, among others, Vice President Cheney and his counsel, David Addington, to ignore its own lawyers.

Cheney Diagnosed with Blood Clot in his left leg

Here's Reuters report:

Cheney has blood clot in leg, not hospitalized
12 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Doctors found a blood clot in Vice President Dick Cheney's left leg on Monday but he was not admitted to a hospital and will be treated with blood thinning medication, his office said.

Cheney, who has a history of heart troubles, went to his doctor's office after he "experienced mild calf discomfort," his office said in a statement.

"An ultrasound revealed a deep venous thrombosis (DVT) or 'blood clot' in his left lower leg," it said. "His doctors will treat him with blood thinning medication for several months. The vice president has returned to the White House to resume his schedule."

Won't say any more!

A Contingency Plan?

It's time to contact your Congress members, both House and Senate. Bush and Cheney are hell bent to get us into a war with Iran. It's not enough that we are in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are playing a bad game of Strategy.

From the AP

U.S. developing contingency plan to bomb Iran: report Sat Feb 24, 7:52 PM ET
Despite the Bush administration's insistence it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President George W. Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.

The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months, according to an unidentified former U.S. intelligence official cited in the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the March 4 issue.

The panel initially focused on destroying Iran's nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been directed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq, according to an Air Force adviser and a Pentagon consultant, who were not identified.

The consultant and a former senior intelligence official both said that U.S. military and special-operations teams had crossed the border from Iraq into Iran in pursuit of Iranian operatives, according to the article.

In response to the report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said: "The United States is not planning to go to war with Iran. To suggest anything to the contrary is simply wrong, misleading and mischievous.

"The United States has been very clear with respect to its concerns regarding specific Iranian government activities. The president has repeatedly stated publicly that this country is going to work with allies in the region to address those concerns through diplomatic efforts," Whitman said.

Pentagon officials say they maintain contingency plans for literally dozens of potential conflicts around the world and that all plans are subject to regular and ongoing review.

If we don't speak up, NOW, this will happen. The worst administration ever!

Iran!

The rhetoric for the attack on Iran has been heating up. VP Cheney has been talking about the buildup of our fleet in the Arabian Gulf and a possible strike on Iran. Here's some excerpts from an article in the Australian:

Cheney hints at Iran strike
Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor
February 24, 2007

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has raised the possibility of military action to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
He has endorsed Republican senator John McCain's proposition that the only thing worse than a military confrontation with Iran would be a nuclear-armed Iran.

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Cheney said: "I would guess that John McCain and I are pretty close to agreement."

The visiting Vice-President said that he had no doubt Iran was striving to enrich uranium to the point where they could make nuclear weapons.

He accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of espousing an "apocalyptic philosophy" and making "threatening noises about Israel and the US and others".

He also said Iran was a sponsor of terrorism, especially through Hezbollah. However, the US did not believe Iran possessed any nuclear weapons as yet.

"You get various estimates of where the point of no return is," Mr Cheney said, identifying nuclear terrorism as the greatest threat to the world. "Is it when they possess weapons or does it come sooner, when they have mastered the technology but perhaps not yet produced fissile material for weapons?"

It seems our admin is getting closer to taking us into another war. The Generals don't seem to like this much. From the Times on Line:

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack
Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Washington
SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

I was afraid of this. Bush and Cheney are itching to get us into another war. If this happens, the oils supply to our nation and others will be curtailed and the price of oil will skyrocket. These are madmen and they have to be stopped and they have to be impeached. They think they can do whatever they want and no one can stop them.