GROUPS REQUEST SPECIAL PROSECUTOR FOR BUSH, CHENEY, et alia For Immediate Release February 24, 2009 Contact: David Swansondavid@davidswanson.org
Statement on Prosecution of Former High Officials
We urge Attorney General Eric
Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the
most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly
employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former
top officials of the Bush Administration.
Our laws, and treaties that under
Article
VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land,
require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president
and the former
vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations.
The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
We see no need for
these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or "truth"
commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation
can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.
Marcus Raskin, co-founder of Institute for Policy
Studies, member of editorial board of the /Nation/,
member of the special staff of the National Security Council in the Kennedy Administration
Naomi Wolf, author of /End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot/,
and /Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries/ http://naomiwolf.org
latimes.com —Vice
President Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving waterboarding, a crime for which the U.S. executed
world leaders after World War II.
During the Scooter Libby trial, it became very clear that Dick Cheney was behind
the outing of Valerie Plame, who was running an undercover operation. Thus, Cheney had provided aid-and-comfort to enemies
of the United States. At that time the only remedy for a sitting vice president was for Congress to impeach, and Congressional
Democrats determined that they had a choice, not an obligation to act. I disagreed.
Descriptions of the Bush administration and books which record and analyze the Bush/Cheney disaster:
"State of War", by James Risen
"Damning and dismaying.... Risen has produced some of the best journalism on the Central Intelligence
Agency and the dysfunctional relationship between the White House and the U.S. spy community...
"State of War" is a welcome reminder that American journalism has a higher purpose than shallow pandering to the
lowest pop-cultural denominator. James Risen's book is an urgent contribution to the country's common good by
a skillful and courageous reporter." - - - Los Angeles Times
"Explosive... Risen may have become the new Woodward and Bernstein..." -- The New York Times Book Review
"Risen's
book is really about the secret of many things that have gone wrong in the administration of George W. Bush. The quantity,
and apparent quality, of the secrets revealed in State of War distinguishes Risen's book from its competitors. What
it represents is a profound hemorrhaging of information from within the corridors of secret power in Washington." ----
Toronto Globa and Mail
