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MEDIA RELEASE
Monday, May 12, 2003
Contacts:
Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576, nallen@acadia.net
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, scottmclarty@yahoo.com
Greens, calling toleration of White House deceit
and evasion a grave threat to U.S. democracy, ask "Why is perjury
about oral sex cause for impeachment, but not perjury about reasons for
war? Why is the Democratic Party asleep in the passenger seat?"
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "The revelation that
Halliburton's multibillion-dollar postwar contract involves distribution
of Iraqi oil tops off a list of White House deceptions about the purpose
of the invasion of Iraq," said Jake Schneider, treasurer of the
Green Party of the United States. "Rep. Henry Waxman's [D.-Calif.]
exposure of the Halliburton deal proves what Greens and other opponents
of the war have said all along. The U.S. victory over Saddam's
forces wasn't a matter of liberation for the people of Iraq, but of
conquest -- of regional political dominance and control over Iraq's oil
resources."
Many of the deceptions surrounding the U.S. invasion
have been blatant and known to be false all along, say Greens.
"What does it say for the health of
American democracy, when President Bush or Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld can make patently false statements, without challenge from most
of the media or most Democrats?" asked Mark Dunlea, chair of the
Green Party of New York State. "Many Americans seem to
believe that the dishonesty is justified simply because the U.S. won the
war."
Greens cite numerous examples of wartime deceit
and evasion:
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According to countless speeches and statements by
President Bush and his cabinet and staff, the menace of Saddam's
weapons of mass destruction, with the imminent threat they posed to
Iraq's neighbors and the U.S., was the major cause for the war. But
after a massive invasion in which thousands of sites were targeted
throughout Iraq, the U.S. has discovered no evidence of WMDs. Some
White House officials have conceded that Iraqi WMDs was not the real
cause for the war:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/US/globalshow_030425.html
"If the U.S. truly believed that Iraq possessed WMDs, if the
intelligence that Secretary of State Powell presented to the U.N. in
February was at all valid, their discovery should have been a
strategic goal during the first days of the invasion," asked
Dunlea "Why didn't U.S. forces make securing Iraq's nuclear
facilities at Kut and al Tuwaitha a priority? Any postwar search for
WMDs in Iraq or elsewhere should be conducted by U.N. inspectors,
since U.S. officials can no longer be trusted."
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Rumsfeld expressed great concern over Iraq's
cultural heritage and promised that the U.S. would do everything to
protect sites, artifacts, and museums and libraries. But while U.S.
troops guarded Iraq's Ministry of Oil, they did nothing to protect
Iraq's museums, libraries, and colleges from looting and
destruction.
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Numerous conflicts of interest, in which the Bush
Administration's top corporate contributors and cronies won million-
and billion-dollar wartime deals, have gone uninvestigated. The
exposure of Pentagon advisor Richard Perle's scandalous conflicts of
interest connections with defense contractor Global Crossing led to
Perle's resignation as board chair last week, but Perle retains a
seat on the board.
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In the months leading up to the war: The
International Atomic Energy Agency disavowed President Bush's claim
in September 2002 that an agency report showed evidence that Iraq in
1998 was 'six months away' from developing a nuclear weapon. The
Bush Administration, including Powell speaking before the U.N. and
the President in his victory speech on board the U.S.S. Abraham
Lincoln on May 5, claimed that Saddam had conspired with al-Qaeda,
despite the lack of evidence and the fact that al-Qaeda and Osama
bin Laden have called for Iraqi Muslims to topple Saddam;
about half of the American public believed this unsupported
allegation, according to polls. Powell's claim that Iraq tried to
buy uranium for nuclear weapons from Niger was based on clumsily
forged evidence. Powell's exclusive British intelligence information
was plagiarized from a paper published over a decade ago by an
American graduate student.
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Greens also note that the White House and
intelligence agencies are blocking the release of information about
the September 11 terrorist attacks, delaying publication of a
900-page report from Congress on how the attacks happened. The
blocked information includes details of early warnings received by
the FBI, as well as testimony already published, such as the Phoenix
memo.
"Why aren't these deceptions and evasions a
major scandal and cause for investigation and prosecution?", asked
Starlene Rankin, Lavender Green Caucus delegate to the national
party. "Where's the outrage from the public and media?
Why is perjury about oral sex cause for impeachment, but not perjury
before Congress, the American people, and the U.N. about reasons for
war? Why is the Democratic Party, except for a few vigilant Congress
members like Henry Waxman, asleep in the passenger seat?"
MORE INFORMATION
The Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
National office: 1314 18th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
search: cpr, irq, fpol
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