Wow.

I've just been watching the Conyers hearings on C-SPAN. The hearing began with Ambassador Joe Wilson, whose wife was outed as a CIA agent, discussing the lies which lead the US into war. "We are having this discussion today because we failed to have it three years ago when we went to war," Wilson said.

This was followed up by an emotional appeal from Cindy Sheehan, a woman who lost her son to the war, who brought testimonies from other grieving parents.

But things really got going when John Bonifaz, author and co-founder of www.afterdowningstreet.org, started talking about the need to impeach George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors. Bonifaz claimed that Bush had intentionally misled the US Congress:

"If the President has misled this nation into war, then he must be impeached. The United States Constitution demands no less."

Congresswoman Maxine Waters turned the focus onto Dick Cheney's "eight or twelve" visits to CIA Headqarters. Former CIA man Ray McGovern said the visits were unprecedented, even during former CIA head Bush Snr's tenure as President. He said former CIA head George Tenet not only did not protect CIA analysts from the pressure of these visits, he instead amplified the pressure. He said the CIA had become so corrupted and so policitized under Tenet that they could not come up with useful answers, and the analysts who refused to tolerate this pressure have now left, leaving only yes-men working in the Agency today. Mc Govern later added that there had been 22 years of politicization and US intelligence had "never been more of a shambles". He blamed "malleable managers" who had "bubbled to the top" by promising to provide whatever intelligence was wanted by their bosses.

Rep. Shiela Jackson Lee apologized for allowing Bush to start the war unconstitutionally. This apology was repeated by other members of the US Congress. Barbara Lee asked if Powell and Rice were part of the lies, or if such knowledge was "above their pay grade". She was told that Powell was just a yes-man, while Rice was just a liar.

It was great to see all the various threads and facts about Bush's Iraq War lies all coming together in one place, with many high-level witnesses on site to answer questions.

I think merely impeaching Bush must be only the beginning of this process. The entire administration must be investigated and all those who have profited from the war - including corporations - must be stripped of their profits. Those responsible for the lies must be punished with jail terms, not mere rebukes or the stripping of powers. And further investigations must include the no-conservatives' links to the Israeli government, and to many, many people in the US media, including moguls like Rupert Murdoch and lesser sycophants like Rush Limbaugh.