Watergate and the Iraq War - A higher standard of truthfulness?

In a radio address on October 5, 2002, Bush claimed, "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorised Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have".

Two days later, speaking in Cincinnati, Ohio, he said, "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his ‘nuclear mujahideen’ - his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

In a State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, Bush also stated, "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent”.

Despite the fact the memo was splashed across the front pages of dozens of international newspapers, it was relegated to the back pages, or not covered at all, in US papers.

The memo's authenticity has never been called into question by either the Bush Administration or Tony Blair's office.

The Chicago Tribune released a story on May 17, stating, “The White House has denied the premise of the memo, the American media have reacted slowly to it and the public generally seems indifferent to the issue or unwilling to rehash the bitter pre-war debate over the reasons for the war. All of this has contributed to something less than a robust discussion of a memo that would seem to bolster the strongest assertions of the war's critics.”

How sad for the more than 1,400 soldiers and the tens of thousands of innocent civilians who died in the Iraq war and the thousands more who will no doubt perish as this bogus and unjust war rages on. How much more evidence do we need to pile on in order for those gutless Democrats and those fanatical Republicans in Congress and the Senate to hold this president accountable for either war crimes or defrauding the United States?

One of the key figures during Watergate made a compelling case a couple of years ago for impeachment if President Bush intentionally misled Congress and the public into backing a war against Iraq.

“To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked," wrote John Dean, President Richard Nixon’s former counsel, in a June 6, 2003 column for findlaw.com. "Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be ‘a high crime’ under the constitution’s impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony ‘to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose’.”

Dean said statements made by presidents that pertain to national security issues are supposed to be held to a higher standard of truthfulness.

"A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson’s distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from re-election. President Richard Nixon’s false statements about Watergate forced his resignation."