The Case Against George W. Bush

Steven C. Markoff

• Publisher: Rare Bird Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781644281772
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Corruption & Misconduct
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book chronicles the presidency of George W. Bush, through almost 600 quotes from over 90 authors and other information sources, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; Hans Blix, head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003; former President George W. Bush himself; former Vice President Dick Cheney; former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and writers and journalists such as Steve Coll, Frank Rich, Craig Unger and Bob Woodward. The author presents detailed sourced evidence of three crimes committed by George W. Bush during his presidency:

• His failure to take the many warnings of coming terror attacks on our country seriously.
• Taking our country, by misleading and false information, into an unnecessary and disastrous 2003 war with Iraq, costing the lives of more than 4, 000 Americans and 500, 000 others.
• Breaking domestic and international laws by approving the torturing of people thought to have needed information of terrorists and their plans.While the author lays out his case of the crimes, he leaves it up to each reader to decide on the probable guilt, or not, of George W. Bush and his actions and non-actions regarding the alleged crimes.
  

Crime #1: Criminal Negligence / 9/11

President George W. Bush was well-briefed about the dangers to our country from bin Laden and Al-Qaeda even before he became president. After his inauguration he did little about those dangers until 9/11. Some knowledgeable people say 9/11 didn’t need to have happened.

The quotes in this chapter show that beginning in the early 1980s, the presidential administrations of Ronald W. Reagan and George H. W. Bush were tracking and dealing with Iraq, Middle Eastern oil, and Hussein. From 1988 on, H. W. Bush and Clinton were additionally dealing with the growing danger from the terrorist group Al-Qaeda and its mentor and strategist Osama bin Laden.

In addition to prior presidential knowledge about bin Laden and Al-Qaeda going back ten years, some weeks before George W. Bush took office in January 2001, he and his top people received pre-inauguration intelligence briefings from President Clinton and his senior staff about the special danger posed by Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. At that time, the Clinton administration thought they were the most lethal terrorist threats to our country.

Those pre-inauguration briefings made it clear that bin Laden and Al-Qaeda intended to terrorize the United States and our people again, after previously attacking our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, the World Trade Center in 1993, and the USS Cole in 2000.

However, those pre-inauguration intelligence briefings about the danger of bin Laden and Al-Qaeda seemingly had little impact on our soon-to-be president.

From the first few days of Bush’s inauguration, and with no credible intelligence that Hussein was an urgent, immediate, or serious threat to our country, President Bush began telling the American people about the danger posed by Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. In the months ahead, Bush would keep his focus on Saddam, despite the continuing flood of intelligence he received that showed we would be attacked again by Al-Qaeda. Almost from the day of Bush’s inauguration, his administration also focused on Iraqi oil.

Mirroring President Bush’s apparent lack of interest in bin Laden and Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11 were other Bush administration senior officials. They included Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, National Security adviser Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Foreign Policy Advisor Richard Perle.

Bush’s post-inauguration focus on Hussein and Iraqi oil increased the chances that we would be attacked by Al-Qaeda, which we were on September 11, 2001. The 2,9735 lives lost that day (excluding the nineteen hijackers who committed suicide in the attacks) constituted the greatest number of casualties from a terrorist attack on US soil in the history of our nation. The number of lives lost even surpassed the 2,4036 killed in the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In addition to the thousands killed and wounded on 9/11, many were sickened by inhaling poisoned air while trying to help those buried or injured in the rubble of the collapsed Twin Towers.

The carnage from 9/11 destroyed people, families, and businesses and set the stage for the loss of many of our civil liberties due to the policies, regulations, and laws enacted by knee-jerk (some say premeditated) responses to the panic that followed.

The quotes in this chapter will highlight some knowledgeable people who claim that were it not for Bush’s lack of interest toward the ever-flowing intel about the coming terrorist attacks, 9/11 could have been disrupted or prevented.

If there had been no 9/11 to terrify our country with the fear of more attacks, Bush would not have had the political capital to push us into attacking Iraq in 2003. Without 9/11 or the Iraq War, there would not have been any reason or excuse to torture anyone.

As an indication of what was in George W. Bush’s mind after his inauguration, in the 379 speeches7 he made from January 20, 2001, through 9/10/2001, he never mentioned bin Laden or Al-Qaeda. However, he mentioned Saddam Hussein; Iraq; WMD; nuclear; offensive; defensive weapons; weapons of terror or mass destruction; or Saddam and imminent or immediate threats 143 times. He mentioned oil forty-one times.

In the 379 speeches ...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Preface
• Quote Credibility & Unusual Formats
• Overview
• Crime #1: Criminal Negligence / 9/11
• Crime #2: Torture / Torturing Prisoners / Sending Prisoners to be Tortured by Others / Related Issues
• Crime #3: War Crimes / Crimes Against Humanity / Murder Over the Falsely Sold 2003 Iraq War
• Summary
• In conclusion
• Methodology
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D
• Appendix E
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index