Conspiracy = Impeachment

Wanted: Dead or Alive

(wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

Abu Musab Zarqawi

Osama bin Laden

(Just kidding - We really don't want to catch these guys or even know where they might be hiding. It is the Bush version of "don't ask, don't tell.)

This week's edition of Newsweek publishes an account from career CIA officer, Gary Berntsen, that confirms Senator John Kerry's campaign assertions that the Bush Administration allowed 9/11 mastermind and financier, Osama bin Laden to escape during the Tora Bora operation in Afganistan in 2001.

"In his book—titled "Jawbreaker"—the decorated career CIA officer criticizes Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department for not providing enough support to the CIA and the Pentagon's own Special Forces teams in the final hours of Tora Bora, says Berntsen's lawyer, Roy Krieger. (Berntsen would not divulge the book's specifics, saying he's awaiting CIA clearance.) That backs up other recent accounts, including that of military author Sean Naylor, who calls Tora Bora a "strategic disaster" because the Pentagon refused to deploy a cordon of conventional forces to cut off escaping Qaeda and Taliban members..."

In a two year period, prior to the invasion of Iraq, the White House was presented with detailed military plans to attack the terrorist training camp and infrastructure of Abu Musab Zarqawi's organization in Kurdish controlled Northern Iraq. The Bush Administration decided against three separate and distinct operations proposed by US commanders. NBC News reported on these failures to deafing public and media silence in 2004.

"...NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.

[...] Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam."

In late 2001 and mid-2002, the Bush Administration was in the position to kill or capture the man behind 9/11 and the man currently leading al Queda's efforts in Iraq. In both cases the Adminstration failed to act. Resources were available, the military was ready, the public was behind the President. Why were bin Laden and Zarqawi allowed to escape?

Is it possible that with the leader of al Queda and his chief lieutenant in Iraq dead or captured, the American people might not buy into an invasion of Iraq? Certain, bringing al Queda's criminal leadership to justice in an American court would have presented a different image of America to the world. An image of a free, just country that President Bush and his chief advisors have been so carefully and completely working to distort throughout the world. To Bush and his "warriors," justice and the rule of law are for weaklings (and liberals). Real men (true leaders) send soldiers to die to avenge and conquer. Justice is for the weak.

This is the lie for which American soldiers are dying in Iraq. The men and women who perpetrated that lie must be brought to justice. They owe justice to the American people.