National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218
September 26, 2008
Attorney General Michael Mukasey ~ United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Hon. Mukasey:
I am writing on behalf of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance. We are concerned citizens who tried to prevent the illegal invasion of Iraq. While we were unsuccessful, we have been devoting much time and energy to convince Congress to end the occupation. Over time we discovered that the Bush-Cheney administration may have engaged in illegal behavior leading up to the war and afterwards.
NCNR members would like to meet with you to discuss the indictment of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. We are quite flexible and would arrange our schedules to meet with a DOJ representative at a selected date and time. Our group would be small, and it would include someone who was directly affected by the illegal invasion of Iraq. Note there is an urgency to this matter.
At the meeting we would hope to discuss several examples of what we perceive to be illegal behavior on the part of the Bush administration. For example, the administration made false claims about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in order to build a public case for war. This manipulation of pre-war intelligence included a claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could threaten the United States. Intelligence was also manufactured to claim a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
It is our understanding, though, that on October 1, 2002, the CIA provided Bush with its National Intelligence Estimate, a consensus opinion of all sixteen US intelligence agencies. On page 8, it clearly states Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country.
After the invasion of Iraq, the resulting calamity has left more than 4,000 members of the U.S. military dead, thousands more wounded, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and the wholesale destruction of a country. It can be argued that the architects of this war had a criminal state of mind.
Moreover, the invasion seems to have violated numerous U.S. and international laws, including but not limited to USC 2441 (War Crimes Act of 1996), the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter, the U.N. Charter and Resolutions, the Laws and Customs of War on Land. We also believe U.S. law was violated through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of U.S. citizens without a warrant. The violations continued with the authorization to torture thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and to hide prisoners in order to deny them due process.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, appointed by President Truman to be the Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunals following World War II, stated, “let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.” Thus we have a Nuremberg obligation to try to hold our government officials accountable.
Also there is a well-established law in our jurisprudence which places an affirmative duty on all of us to expose any treasonous or criminal act which comes to our attention. Failure to do so is defined as “misprision.” As good citizens, we are writing to you out of duty, knowing that felonies have been committed we are to inform a magistrate. Silently to observe the commission of a felony, without using any endeavors to apprehend the offender, is a misprision.
We look forward to your response and the scheduling of a meeting. In this country, there is the belief no person is above the law. So Bush and Cheney should be indicted, accused of the serious violations of the law which we enumerated above.
In peace,
Max Obuszewski on behalf of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
Maria Allwine ~ Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore
Jean Athey ~ PeaceAction Montgomery [County, Maryland]
Dr. Lawrence Egbert ~ Chesapeake [Maryland] Physicians for Social Responsibility
Joy First ~ Madison [Wisconsin] Pledge of Resistance
Don Muller ~ Sitkans [Alaska] for Peace and Justice
John Oliver ~ Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter #105 Veterans for Peace
Janie M. Stein ~ Salina, Kansas People for Peace
Brother Henry Werner ~ Tent of Abraham, Baltimore