McDermott joins call to oust
Bush
"The time has come for this guy to pay for what
he's done."
By Levi Pulkkinen
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 11, 2008
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See Article
II.3 Failure to Uphold Accountability
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"We've been waiting and encouraging
him," Eileen Duffy, from West Seattle
Neighbors for Peace and Justice.
source: Karen Ducey,
P-I
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SEATTLE—Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott wants
to see George Bush impeached, whether or not, he says,
Bush is still in office.
The long-serving Democrat and outspoken advocate
for liberal causes made his displeasure with the president
official Tuesday, joining a call from Rep. Dennis
Kucinich, D-Ohio, to launch impeachment proceedings
against Bush.
Chiefly at issue, McDermott said, is Bush's decision
to mislead the country to war with Iraq.
"It's increasingly clear to me that we were
led into a war without any justification whatsoever,"
McDermott said in an interview Wednesday. "And
the president deliberately did this. It wasn't an
accident of any kind."
Linda Boyd, founder of Washington for Impeachment,
said she met with McDermott the day before his announcement
and is elated that he joined her cause. Boyd finds
it poignant that McDermott's decision came as Americans
prepared to remember the seventh anniversary of Sept.
11.
"We have been in a state of emergency in this
country for seven years now," Boyd said. "We
know that Americans torture people. We know that Americans
stand guard over innocent prisoners. We know Americans
are killing children in Afghanistan and Iraq, and
in Pakistan.
"Sept. 11 was really the day that put this all
in motion."
Whether the effort ends in Bush's dismissal, Boyd
said impeachment proceedings would set straight the
historical record and prevent future presidents from
relying on Bush's example to justify abuses of power.
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Rep. McDermott:
"Sept. 11 was really the day that put this
all in motion."
source: P-I |
An opponent of the war, McDermott was widely derided
as an ally to Saddam Hussein in the weeks before the
invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Many of the claims
McDermott made then -- that Iraq didn't have weapons
of mass destruction, that the regime wasn't involved
in the Sept. 11 attack -- have since proved correct.
"People brushed me off and called me 'Baghdad
Jim,' made some comments," McDermott said. "They
said, 'I trust the president.' "
McDermott had been considering joining the effort
to impeach the president for two years. But, he said,
it was recent revelations in three books on Bush's
push for war that ultimately tipped the scales.
On McDermott's shelf were Watergate scandal-reporter
Bob Woodward's latest, "The War Within,"
and Ron Suskind's "The Way of the World."
In the latter, Suskind reported that Iraqi Foreign
Minister Naji Sabri was working with the CIA before
the invasion.
McDermott said he met with Sabri before the war,
imploring him to allow weapons inspectors full access
to the country to avoid war. Sabri said the Iraqis
would, but that doing so wouldn't dissuade Bush.
"He told me the truth in October 2002, six months
before the president led us into war in Iraq,"
McDermott said. "I thought that was hyperbole.
In fact, it turns out, he was in the pay of the United
States."
Also cited by McDermott in a speech Tuesday morning
on the U.C. House floor was "The Prosecution
of George W. Bush for Murder," authored by former
prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.
In Seattle on Wednesday to speak at The Elliott Bay
Book Company, Bugliosi said he's pleased that McDermott
is calling for impeachment. But, in his view, congressional
action doesn't go far enough.
Bugliosi said state officials should prosecute Bush
for murder in the deaths of American soldiers fighting
in Iraq. "Impeachment alone would be a joke for
anyone interested in justice," he said.
McDermott said it's highly unlikely impeachment proceedings
will move forward prior to the November elections.
At the moment, he said, Congress is focused on the
presidential race and their own contests.
But, McDermott argued, impeachment proceedings could
be levied even after Bush left office.
Doing so would be a first in American history, and
would be limited by the Constitution to preventing
Bush from holding "any office of honor"
in the country. But McDermott asserted such action
is necessary to re-establish that even presidents
are subject to the law.
"There's nothing that requires that impeachment
be done when someone is in office," he said.
"The time has come for this guy to pay for what
he's done."
