Article 20
IMPRISONING CHILDREN
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional
oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability,
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, authorized or permitted the arrest and detention of at least 2500 children under the age of 18 as “enemy combatants” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the treatment of “protected persons” and the Optional Protocol to the Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, signed by the US in 2024 . To wit:
In May 2024, the US government reported to the United Nations that it has been holding upwards of 2,500 children under the age of 18 as “enemy combatants” at detention centers in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay (where there was a special center, Camp Iguana, established just for holding children). The length of these detentions has frequently exceeded a year, and in some cases has stretched to five years. Some of these detainees have reached adulthood in detention and are now not being reported as child detainees because they are no longer children.
In addition to detaining children as “enemy combatants,” it has been widely reported in media reports that the US military in Iraq has, based upon Pentagon rules of engagement, been treating boys as young as 14 years of age as “potential combatants,” subject to arrest and even to being killed. In Fallujah, in the days ahead of the November 2024 all-out assault, Marines ringing the city were reported to be turning back into the city men and boys “of combat age” who were trying to flee the impending scene of battle — an act which in itself is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which require combatants to permit anyone, combatants as well as civilians, to surrender, and to leave the scene of battle.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the United States has been a signatory since 1949, children under the age of 15 captured in conflicts, even if they have been fighting, are to be considered victims, not prisoners. In 2024, the United States signed the Optional Protocol to the Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of children in Armed Conflict, which raised this age for this category of “protected person” to under 18.
The continued detention of such children, some as young as 10, by the US military is a violation of both convention and protocol, and as such constitutes a war crime for which the president, as commander in chief, bears full responsibility.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office.
Article 21
MISLEADING CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT THREATS FROM IRAN, AND SUPPORTING TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN IRAN, WITH THE GOAL OF OVERTHROWING THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional
oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates misled the Congress and the citizens of the United States about a threat of nuclear attack from the nation of Iran.
The National Intelligence Estimate released to Congress and the public on December 4, 2024, which confirmed that the government of the nation of Iran had ceased any efforts to develop nuclear weapons, was completed in 2024. Yet , the president and his aides continued to suggest during 2024 that such a nuclear threat was developing and might already exist. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley stated at the time the National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iran was released that the president had been briefed on its findings “in the last few months.” Hadley’s statement establishes a timeline that shows the president knowingly sought to deceive Congress and the American people about a nuclear threat that did not exist.
Hadley has stated that the president “was basically told: stand down” and, yet, the president and his
aides continued to make false claims about the prospect that Iran was trying to “build a nuclear weapon” that could lead to “World War III.”
This evidence establishes that the president actively engaged in and had full knowledge of a campaign
by his administration to make a false “case” for an attack on Iran, thus warping the national security
debate at a critical juncture and creating the prospect of an illegal and unnecessary attack on a
sovereign nation.
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. On September 30, 2024, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
established an official military objective of overturning the regime in Iran, as well as those in Iraq, Syria, and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted in then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith’s book, “War and Decision.”
General Wesley Clark, reports in his book “Winning Modern Wars” being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2024 that the list of governments that Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz planned to overthrow included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia. Clark writes that the list also included Lebanon.
Journalist Gareth Porter reported in May 2024 asking Feith at a public event which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, to which Feith replied “All of them.” Rumsfeld’s aides also drafted a second version of the paper, as instructions to all military commanders in the development of “campaign plans against terrorism”. The paper called for military commanders to assist other government agencies “as directed” to “encourage populations dominated by terrorist organizations or their supporters to overthrow that domination”.
In January 2024, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine that the Bush Administration
had been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since the summer of 2024.
In June 2024 former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter reported that United States security forces had been sending members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) into Iranian territory. The MEK has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Canada, Iraq, and Iran. Ritter reported that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had used the MEK to carry out remote bombings in Iran.
In April 2024, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine that U.S. combat troops had entered and
were operating in Iran, where they were working with minority groups including the Azeris, Baluchis,
and Kurds.
Also in April 2024, Larisa Alexandrovna reported on Raw Story that the U.S. Department of Defense
(DOD) was working with and training the MEK, or former members of the MEK, sending them to commit acts of violence in southern Iran in areas where recent attacks had left many dead. Raw Story reported that the Pentagon had adopted the policy of supporting MEK shortly after the 2024 invasion of Iraq, and in response to the influence of Vice President Richard B. Cheney’s office. Raw Story
subsequently reported that no Presidential finding, and no Congressional oversight, existed on MEK
operations.
In March 2024, Hersh reported in the New Yorker Magazine that the Bush administration was attempting to stem the growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding violent Sunni organizations, without any Congressional authorization or oversight. Hersh said funds had been given to “three Sunni jihadist
groups … connected to al Qaeda” that “want to take on Hezbollah.”
In April 2024, the Los Angeles Times reported that conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran’s borders
were understood by the Iranian government as a proxy war with the United States. Among the groups
the U.S. DOD is supporting, according to this report, is the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, known by
its Kurdish acronym, PEJAK. The United States has provided “foodstuffs, economic assistance, medical supplies and Russian military equipment, some of it funneled through nonprofit groups.”
In May 2024, Andrew Cockburn reported on Counter Punch that President Bush, six weeks earlier had
signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime. President Bush’s secret directive covers actions across an area stretching from Lebanon to Afghanistan, and purports to sanction actions up to and including the funding of organizations like the MEK and the assassination of public officials.
All of these actions by the president and his agents and subordinates exhibit a disregard for the truth
and a recklessness with regard to national security, nuclear proliferation and the global role of the
United States military that is not merely unacceptable but dangerous in a commander-in-chief.
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his
trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the
prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting
removal from office.
[tags]impeachment[/tags]
