Dennis Kucinich

“ By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.’’ President Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002. ”

“ Even after the National Intelligence Estimate was released to Congress and the American people, the president stated that he did not believe anything had changed and suggested that he and members of his administration would continue to argue that Iran should be seen as posing a threat to the United States. He did this despite the fact that United States intelligence agencies had clearly and officially stated that this was not the case.
Evidence suggests that the Bush Administration’s attempts to portray Iran as a threat are part of a broader U.S. policy toward Iran. ”

“ Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.’’ Address of President Bush to the United Nations General Assembly, September 12, 2002.
(4) ‘‘ [N] o terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people than the regime of Saddam Hussein and Iraq.’’ Statement of Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Congress, September 19, 2002. ”

“ The Bush Administration has chosen not to apply the Uniform Code of Military Justice or United States law to mercenaries and other contractors employed by the United States government in Iraq.
Operating free of Iraqi or U.S. law, mercenaries have killed many Iraqi civilians in a manner that observers have described as aggression and not as self-defense. Many U.S. contractors have also alleged that they have been the victims of aggression (in several cases of rape) by their fellow contract employees in Iraq. ”

“ Detainees in US custody in Iraq and Guantanamo have, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, been hidden from and denied visits by the International Red Cross organization, while thousands of others in Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, ships in foreign off-shore sites, and an unknown number of so-called ‘‘black sites’’ around the world have been denied any opportunity to challenge their detentions. ”

“ Prior to his election as Vice President, Dick Cheney, then-CEO of Halliburton, in a speech at the Institute of Petroleum in 1999 demonstrated a keen awareness of the sensitive economic and geopolitical role of Middle East oil resources saying: ‘‘By 2010, we will need on the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and national oil companies are obviously controlling about 90 percent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. ”

“ C. The 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause guarantees that no minority group will suffer disparate treatment in a federal, state, or local election in stating that: ‘‘No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ”

“ This effort to redefine torture by calling certain practices simply ‘‘enhanced interrogation techniques’’ flies in the face of the Third Geneva Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which states that ‘‘No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. ”

“ These interpretations are as much a part of this country’s surveillance law as the statute itself. Without access to them, it is impossible for Congress or the public to have an informed debate on matters that deeply affect the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans . . .
‘‘The Administration’s shroud of secrecy extends to agency rules and executive pronouncements, such as Executive Orders, that carry the force of law. ”

“ Under the direction of President George Bush the United States has engaged in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian populations, including but not limited to blocking roads, cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations, planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and plowing over orchards. ”

“ While engaging in an invasion and occupation of choice, not fought in self-defense, and not launched in accordance with any timetable other than the President’s choosing, President Bush sent U.S. troops into danger without providing them with armor. ”

“ Despite the Posse Comitatus Act’s intent, and in contravention of the law, President Bush:
(a) has used military forces for law enforcement purposes on U.S. border patrol;
(b) has established a program to use military personnel for surveillance and information on criminal activities;
(c) is using military espionage equipment to collect intelligence information for law enforcement use on civilians within the United States; and
(d) employs active duty military personnel in surveillance agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) . ”

“ Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.’’
Torture is further prohibited by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the paramount international human rights statement adopted unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly, including the United States, in 1948. ”

“ In March 2001, President Bush announced the U.S. would not be pursuing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, an international effort to reduce greenhouse gasses. The United States is the only industrialized nation that has failed to ratify the accord.
2. In March of 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson: ‘‘In August 2003, the Bush Administration denied a petition to regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles by deciding that CO2 was not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. ”

“ Condoleezza Rice has testified that George Tenet met with the president 40 times to warn him that a major al-Qaeda attack was going to take place, and that in response the president did not convene any meetings of top officials. At such meetings, the FBI could have shared information on possible terrorists enrolled at flight schools. Among the many preventive steps that could have been taken, the Federal Aviation Administration, airlines, and airports might have been put on full alert. ”

“ There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law.’’ Although the state is obligated to repatriate Prisoners of War as soon as hostilities cease, the ICRC’s commentary on the 1949 Conventions states that prisoners should not be repatriated where there are serious reasons for fearing that repatriating the individual would be contrary to general principles of established international law for the protection of human beings. ”

“ A dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce or possess those weapons. We will not permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or terrorize nations which love freedom.’’ Speech by President Bush to Prague Atlantic Student Summit, November 20, 2002. ”

“ These concerns about ‘‘covert propaganda’’ were also the basis for the GAO’s standard for determining when government-funded video news releases are illegal:
‘‘The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by encouraging the viewing audience to believe that the broadcasting news organization developed the information. The prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. ”

“ Direct United States Attorneys to launch and announce investigations of certain leaders, candidates and elected officials affiliated with the Democratic Party at times calculated to cause the most political damage and confusion, most often in the weeks immediately preceding an election, in order that public confidence in the suitability for office of Democratic Party leaders, candidates and elected officials be undermined ”