Five Minutes With
Dennis Kucinich
Rep. Dennis Kucinich announces articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday, April 24, 2007. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)
Dennis Kucinich, who has represented Ohio’s tenth district since 1997, has proudly situated himself at the left end of the Democratic Party. He ran for president in 2004 and 2008 on an anti-war platform, with a signature proposal to balance the existing Department of Defense with a new “Department of Peace.” Kucinich co-sponsored the United States National Health Insurance Act in 2003, which aimed to create single-payer universal healthcare. He voted against the PATRIOT Act and against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He continues to vote against funding the war. Late last year, Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against George W. Bush; he charged the President with illegally invading Iraq in the absence of an official declaration of war, not providing troops with adequate equipment, and deceiving the public with false evidence to support the invasion.
Campus Progress sat down with Kucinich to discuss the articles of impeachment, U.S. involvement in Iraq, and what the public still doesn’t know about the war.
Campus Progress: Why did you introduce the articles of impeachment?
Dennis Kucinich: America was led into an aggressive war based on lies. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, had nothing to do with al-Qaida or 9/11, wasn’t trying to get uranium from Niger, and [had] no intention or capability of attacking the United States. There was no legitimate cause for war against Iraq, and the administration knew that, even though they led the American people to believe otherwise. We’ve had over 4,000 soldiers lose their lives, over a million of Iraqis have perished, [and] the war is going to cost $3 trillion. There has to be accountability.
CP: If that’s true, why don’t you have more support behind you?
DK: Whether or not another person supports it, even if I’m the only one, it is my obligation to stand up for the Constitution and stand up for what’s right. The question is: Is there any offense that is impeachable or can the president rule with impunity without being accountable to anyone? If that’s the fact, then he is not a president; he is a dictator. If we are going to continue to say the word democracy we cannot let this president get away with taking us into a war based on lies and everything that has followed from it: the destruction of civil liberties, inflation of the military budget, [and] destruction of the domestic agenda. All that goes together. Everything that’s happened in the last seven years revolves around the Bush administration’s taking us into Iraq.
CP: Back in 2003, you were one of the few members of Congress who didn’t support the war. Why did Congress not exercise its authority to prevent the Bush administration from entering into war?
DK: All the information was on public record if you took the time to read it. But unfortunately, people don’t always take the time to read. I took the time to read and I knew that there was no case for Iraq having anything to do with 9/11 and that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. There was no evidence.
CP: You’re saying that all the information was already on the books. Does that mean we could have predicted the current situation in Iraq?
DK: Everything was predictable. It was predictable that if we went in there it was not going to be a short involvement. It was predictable that it was going to cost trillions of dollars. Lawrence Lindsey had told the president that it was going to cost much more than [Bush said] and he lost his job for that. It was predictable that there would be a massive loss of civilian lives with the approach that was being taken. And it was predictable that, given the Vice President’s meetings with oil companies at the beginning of the war, that there was going to be a connection to oil.
CP: Where do you think public opinion stands on impeachment?
DK: I don’t think people really know what this administration has done. I don’t think that the public understands. That’s why we have to have Judiciary Committee hearings. If you take a poll of something that the people have no idea about you’re not going to get accurate results. But if people learn that Iraq didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction and that the Bush administration knew that when they told Congress that they did, do you realize how public opinion would shift very quickly? If the people were given the facts, they would know the right thing to do. When people know the truth, everything changes. That’s why it’s so important that that the Judiciary Committee schedules a formal impeachment hearing.
CP: As we edge closer to November, how do you think the articles of impeachment could affect the tone of campaigning and might they affect the next administration?
DK: It’s quite likely that the issues that I’ve raised will become stronger after this election, after this president and his administration leave office. But they will not be able to escape the consequences of their violations of U.S. and international law. So I can’t tell you that impeachment will have an effect at all on this election. But we have to watch and see if the [next] president will try to pardon people. We have to see what happens between the time of the election and the time of the new president taking office. That’s going to be a very important period. I think the impact of the work that’s being done now will become stronger as time goes on. That doesn’t depend on the election that depends on the demand for truth.
CP: Are there alternatives to impeachment that still might achieve accountability you’re looking for?
DK: The Constitution doesn’t provide for it. The Constitution says that if the executive violates his oath of office, if he commits a crime, that he should be subject to impeachment. That’s what the Constitution says. It doesn’t say that he gets suspended; it doesn’t say that he gets his pay docked; it doesn’t say that his vacations cancelled; it doesn’t say that he loses his pension. What it says is that he should be subject to impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors and if the House votes favorably, then he then goes to the Senate for a trial. That’s what the Constitution sets forth. It’s possible that the House could vote for impeachment and the Senate not hold a trial before the election. Somebody can be impeached after they leave office so that they’d never be able to hold another position of public trust. There is an issue here, though, that goes way beyond this moment. It’s something that can only be measured within the construct of the constitution keeping [us] safe, but we’re not safe as long as long as we don’t know the truth.
Aaron Ludensky is an Editorial Intern at Campus Progress and a senior at University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
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