to war

June 7, 2003 6:53 AM

Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense?A study in law regarding the current political situation in US politics warmongering.
posted by the fire you left me (62 comments total)

Two words to explain why Father Bush won't be impeached:

Republican Majority.
posted by eustacescrubb at 6:59 AM on June 7, 2003

Entirely up to the mood of Congress. Anything the President does while in office (spitting in the Rose Garden, criticizing pickup trucks, liking Radiohead) is an impeachable offense if the votes are there. If the votes aren't there, nothing is.
posted by jfuller at 7:01 AM on June 7, 2003

Of couse not. Hehad used, he will maintain, info given by intelligence community. After all, Tenant in charge when 9/11 took place. Huge study of this. Report never made public. Now, questions asked and investigation into WMD info by CIA and who deciees group to look into it? Tenant. Who does he appoint? former CIA memebers--sort of like asking former Enron execs to study debacle at Enron.
And the latest report will not be made (my guess) public and Tenanat will still keep his job.
I am surprised Clinton has yet to be blamed for this too.
posted by Postroad at 7:27 AM on June 7, 2003

Another good question would be:
Is charging Martha Stewart enough to make us all forget that Ken Lay (Enron) has yet to be even investigated?
posted by CrazyJub at 8:05 AM on June 7, 2003

I wonder if John Dean is a Whiskey Bar reader.
posted by kayjay at 8:08 AM on June 7, 2003

Tenanat will still keep his job

I know Postroad is all about damning the torpedoes and going full speed ahead when he types, but I really, really, really enjoyed "Tenanat." It sounds like a mix between Tenet and Tiamat. I imagine some kind of scaly, five-headed guy in a suit.
posted by Ljubljana at 8:09 AM on June 7, 2003

Seems like a no-brainer to me. Lying to Congress, the UN and the American people about the reasons for a war not only caused $70-200 billion of additional government waste, it killed US troops unnecessarily, arguably violated international law, destabilized international relations and endangered American citizens. Declaring war with no imminent threat was irrational at best; lying to convince others to do it was criminal.

If Clinton lying about a blowjob was an impeachable offense, this qualifies for life in prison. But as eustacescrubb said, the Republican majority will never let it happen.
posted by neuroshred at 8:17 AM on June 7, 2003

IMO, the only things that could bring impeachement here are:

1. enough evidence

and

2. public outrage.

We've seen what public outcry can do with the recent change to the tax plan. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, even the Republican-controlled government can't ignore it.

Now, the outcome of impeachment is a different story.
posted by o2b at 8:22 AM on June 7, 2003

Why do I think in Iraq right now there's a group of super secret American operatives propping a building with WMD or stuff that looks like WMD. Yes, I am getting that synical.
posted by birdherder at 8:35 AM on June 7, 2003

I doubt they'd even bother trying to plant any WMD. They're getting off on the idea that they can do what they want and be untouchable for it. No need even to lie. It's the difference between Nixon secretly ordering the watergate break-in and Nixon ordering the DoJ to bust the place open in the light of day. They can do that now.
posted by Space Coyote at 8:53 AM on June 7, 2003

My President's breath smells like lies.
posted by trondant at 9:04 AM on June 7, 2003

Much as I want Bush out of office, the thought of a President Cheney makes me want Bush to stay in office nice and safe 'till the end of his term.
posted by hari at 9:13 AM on June 7, 2003

Talk about hedging:

"Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false."

Why not go whole hog:

"Now it is clear that sources have apparently confirmed that either none, some, many or all of his statements might or might not have stretched the truth."

Oh, and that whole "sea of oil" quote of Wolfowitz's?

A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading 'Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil' misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the department of defence website, 'The...difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq.'

-- from the Guardian's retraction of the story it broke.

The story referenced by the link was posted today (Saturday, 7 June) but the initial retraction was posted prominently on the Guardian website's front page at about 4:30 pm (presumably GMT) which should have given John Dean plenty of time to hear about it before filing his article which was posted more than 24 hours after that.

Basically, what I'm saying is: it's a sloppy article. And our President is clearly almost certainly a filthy liar and/or idiot who may or may not deserve his possibly inevitable impeachment.

On Preview: hari... Cheney! Dear sweet jeebus no. Leave the poor simpleton in office. It's not his fault!
posted by rocketpup at 9:16 AM on June 7, 2003

Woops, that would be 430pm on Thursday, 5 June that the retraction was initially posted. Sorry.
posted by rocketpup at 9:17 AM on June 7, 2003

I like the line of reasoning that Bush couldn't be impeached for lying if he didn't know himself that there weren't any weapons there... talk about cynical.
posted by Space Coyote at 9:23 AM on June 7, 2003

No more cynical than Reagan avoiding responsibility for Iran-Contra because he was always asleep when the important decisions were being made.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 9:34 AM on June 7, 2003

Tactically, I say just wait until the 2004 election, and use this to beat up on a discredited incumbent. But that won't work. I agree that public outrage is the only to really get anyhting done about this, but I just don't see it a-brewin'. People in the US wanted to be lied to about the war, and they aren't about to go back and rethink things after the fact.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 9:39 AM on June 7, 2003

I suppose it's difficult for most people to admit being wrong. And to admit that the entire country is wrong is exponentially more unlikely. I never hear from supporters of the war these days, but I assume that to the extent they care at all, they feel that any cost was worth offing Saddam (someone who, btw, had virtually no concrete impact on their lives).

Any cost at all. Even being lied to. Even looking exactly like the arrogant, self-serving bullies that militant Islamists portray us as.

Impeachment is not in the cards, I'm very sorry to say.
posted by divrsional at 9:54 AM on June 7, 2003

Much as I want Bush out of office, the thought of a President Cheney makes me want Bush to stay in office...

On the other hand, the stress from extra scrutiny might overload the pacemaker and finish him off, much to the betterment of humanity.
posted by holycola at 10:00 AM on June 7, 2003

YMMV ;-P
posted by mischief at 10:04 AM on June 7, 2003

Unless some reliable transcript is found of Bush saying "we're going to lie on this one, repeat check check we are planning to lie to the American public those rubes" nothing will happen.

The barometer I use is my mother. Don't insult her -- only I get to do that -- but she is a master of selectively muting the news -- sometime literally (she'll change the channel if CNN is about to run a story she doesn't want to hear, like something potentially positive about Hillary Clinton) and sometimes figuratively (she just goes blank until the next story). And she watches CNN and C-SPAN and (I bet, but don't want to know) Fox nonstop.

I think enough people in our nation treat the news the same way. They've made up their minds about the war, they enjoyed the ass-whupping we put down on Saddam, and they just don't want to know about all this liberal carping about who-said-what-when -- weren't you watching? We got that bastard, who cares how?
posted by argybarg at 10:12 AM on June 7, 2003

I think enough people in our nation treat the news the same way.

My mother's side of the family is fairly conservative (Catholic) and at a recent get together my grandfather asked for a show of hands of people who thought we should have gone into Iraq. There were about seven or eight people at the table, and I was mildly surprised when not a single person raised their hand.

I think, if it could be proven that Bush willfully lied, they, like many Americans, would probably be in favor of impeaching him. Remember, however, that impeach != conviction. It's impeach, then convict and throw out of office. Clinton was impeached but not convicted, and if it ever got far enough to impeach Bush (which will never happen, by the way), he would not be convicted either. Congress went along with the war, it would be self-incriminating to punish Bush.
posted by insomnyuk at 10:43 AM on June 7, 2003

We got that bastard, who cares how?

We did? Is Saddam sharing that cell we put bin Laden in?

To me, the impeachable offense(s) is that this administration has freed two madmen from their own restrictive borders, allowing them to slip away into the darkness, giving them a certain freedom they lacked before we went into Iraq and Afghanistan.

Perhaps someone like Monica should go blow Bush so we can watch him lie about being raped on national television.
posted by WolfDaddy at 10:46 AM on June 7, 2003

Where's The Outrage?

"It is hard to resist reprising the GOP call of yesteryear, Where is the outrage? Just imagine how much shock and complaining there would be if we learned that American Idol had been rigged. But Bush and his comrades can use deceptive means to launch a war and to pass trillion-dollar tax cuts that bust the bank--and then skate away. The ice they are on is a little less smooth and thick than it was a week ago. But much of the public, it seems, is still rooting for Bush. My hunch is that after September 11, many Americans want to see their president--who is now truly their protector--succeed. To conclude that the guy at the helm in these insecure times is not to be trusted can be frightening. Bush is proving--so far--that it is even easier for a president to escape popular outrage when he lies about war and taxes than when he lies about sex."
posted by homunculus at 11:01 AM on June 7, 2003

The barometer I use is my mother.

I have exactly the same system, but I use my father. If he can "get" something, then anyone can. It's not that he is stupid, but that he is comfortable with the stuff of his life, and that includes the stuff between his ears, so he feels a need to "guard" it, and never adopts an opinion until some sort of public consensus is already reached.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:15 AM on June 7, 2003

i'm not surprised by any of this... are you?

i'm sure we'll see the republican party sleaze their way through a lot more before this republican reign is over
posted by prescribed life at 11:17 AM on June 7, 2003

President Bush claimed WMD, based on information he received, he asserts. There is, though, anintelligence committee in Congress. Ought they be impeached also? (the assmption is that no such weapons existed at all since Bush still maintains they will be found.)

The attack, we are now also told, is for other and as seerious reasons, including violations of agreements made at conclusion of Gulf War I...even some Democrats recognize that this is legitimate cause for war, even if no WMD existed.

What really angers me is that whenever there is a special group established to make a study to find who is to blame for miscalculations of anything, the report is subsequently put under seal so that the public is not allowed to know what had taken place.

And, beyond that, the Democrats do not make this an issue by screaming loud and clear publicly about keeping such information from us.
posted by Postroad at 12:50 PM on June 7, 2003

Congress went along with the war, it would be self-incriminating to punish Bush.

I had not thought of this. This is a good, scary, aggravating point.
posted by Hildago at 12:52 PM on June 7, 2003

she watches CNN and C-SPAN

You mean yours actually watches something other than Fox? You are so lucky! My mom watched nothing but Fox News.

Recently I asked her what she thought about all of this, whether she felt like maybe the American public had been lied to, or the truth stretched in order to get us to want to go to war. Her response? "Well, if George lied to us, it was for our own good in order to protect us." She also "knows" that we will find tons and tons of WMDs and the plants to make them, because "George said we will."

I personally feel lied to, but until a lot more people start feeling that way, nothing is going to happen. The problem is that now the world is once again "safe and cozy" from the big bad evil of the Middle East (yeah, right), a lot of people have just gone back to not caring at all.
posted by Orb at 12:57 PM on June 7, 2003

The idea that Bush is protecting America is ludicrous. He had his chance to protect America before 9-11, but his administration ignored every bit of warning, both from the outgoing Clinton administration and from sources within the government afterward. They didn't scramble the jets as it was happening and when it happened, he ran and hid until it was over.

The only American I know of who actually defended America is Todd Beamer.

Bush was a no-show every time he's been called upon to serve his country: he couldn't even be bothered to show up for his cushy, family-arranged draft dodge. The idea that he was defending America with a savage mass revenge-killing in Afghanistan that left that country no less a haven for terrorsts than before, let alone the conquest of Iraq, is preposterous.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:13 PM on June 7, 2003

Well, let's see: Is lying about a reason for a war either a high crime or a misdemeanor? Lying about a blowjob wasn't, except for the fact that it was perjury since the liar was under oath.
posted by alumshubby at 2:51 PM on June 7, 2003

Assuming Bush is found to be lying, and is impeached, who can succeed him that isn't similarly tainted. Cheney and Powell may be able to escape actual prosecution, but (again, assuming there's a lie here) would anyone actually believe them innocent?
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 3:41 PM on June 7, 2003

Err, that first sentence should be a question, and it should be rhetorical. Here's the order of Presidential succession.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 3:42 PM on June 7, 2003

I think the best we can hope for is to see the integrity issue become a feature of the next election.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:10 PM on June 7, 2003

I have doubts that this dog will hunt. I certainly enjoyed reading the article--thanks, fire--because it wracked my body with pleasure spasms. The Bush camp ought to be on the run, yet America has become a vastly smug and stupid land. We're going to let this go deliberately, soul-breakingly. We'll drive away. The world needs a supernational jurisprudence dang skippy, folks. I'll be satisfied if this scandal manages to keep Bush out of a second term.
posted by squirrel at 4:19 PM on June 7, 2003

2 things I see that could happen here to really turn the heat up on Bush:

1: Tony Blair gets the boot. Or they at least try. The general state of things in England seems to be a lot less tolerant of these things than the brainwashed USA. That would really raise some awareness in the US that something isn't right. Which brings me to:

2: The media (ie: not Fox news) decides since there's no war, they need something to boost ratings. I'd think a 'scandal bigger than watergate' would make ratings go insane. When the media starts to smell blood and taste the ratings, it's all over.
posted by klaruz at 5:42 PM on June 7, 2003

The one positive thing about this, to me, is the timing. Simmer, simmer, then next year, as we're (our Armed Forces, that is) still mired in Iraq, boil over. There are a bunch of Democratic candidates out there and one can only hope that one to three of them will have the cojones to push this into the debate even if he (or Carol MB) does not use the "I" word.
posted by billsaysthis at 5:57 PM on June 7, 2003

...and then the bad people explode a dirty bomb in Washington just before the election, while Bush is conveniently off playing golf or biting the heads off of kittens to serve his dark lord or something, and it's President For Life!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:32 PM on June 7, 2003

Could you imagine if they started whittling down the line, and we ended up with President Ashcroft? Round up the heathens and homosexuals, and screw it, we're going on a crusade. Yikes.
posted by benjh at 7:25 PM on June 7, 2003

Well, let's see: Is lying about a reason for a war either a high crime or a misdemeanor? Lying about a blowjob wasn't, except for the fact that it was perjury since the liar was under oath.

I think you're on to something here. The key is for Congress to turn up the heat enough to launch a real investigation. Get Bush to testify under oath. Hopefully, he'd tell the truth and admit that he "exaggerated". If not, then fuck 'im.
posted by jpoulos at 8:46 PM on June 7, 2003

Congress went along with the war, it would be self-incriminating to punish Bush.

If public outrage grows (which it never will in "Moron" FOX News America) Congress would go after Bush using the "we were mislead" argument to justify their moral outrage. Ironically, it is the same defense Bush would use and you can bet your life that defense will work.

Bastards.
posted by sic at 4:07 AM on June 8, 2003

Ah the wonders of "morals" and "lies " ..."evils " and "good".

Facts and events are always left out for some reasons.
posted by elpapacito at 6:06 AM on June 8, 2003

The press is lying down, like they did during the last two elections. Thank god they just lessened the number of people that need to be bribed to silence the major news outlets...Thanks FCC, you rock!

Much as I want Bush out of office, the thought of a President Cheney makes me want Bush to stay in office...

Isn't that a familiar tactic of Bush presidents? God knows I always thought that Quayle was the best anti-assassination tool the elder Bush could have had. Just the thought of it could stop even the most deranged would-be assassin.
posted by Busithoth at 6:26 AM on June 8, 2003

Oh, I don't know. The whole impeachment process would take a few months. And a year of President Cheney would mean the dems could take the White House in 2004 in an easy jog.
posted by crunchland at 7:04 AM on June 8, 2003

I think the best we can hope for is to see the integrity issue become a feature of the next election.

But one of the infuriating things about Bush's popularity is that he already made integrity a major issue of the last election. The people who voted for him because of his "restore decency to the White House" horseshit are giving him a pass on his bait-and-switch policies and lies about Iraq. They should be the ones feeling the most betrayed and outraged, but they aren't.

I'm angry and I feel betrayed, but mostly I just feel sad. Bush lied, thousands of people died, and he won't be punished because his approval numbers are high and the Republicans control Congress. Of course he should be impeached, and of course he won't be.

He's also brought shame onto the United States. We attacked another country without cause. It doesn't matter if NBC weapons are found or not; the only excuse for attacking another country without them attacking you first is that they're an immediate threat, which Iraq was clearly not. Japan had its reasons for attacking the US at Pearl Harbor, and we've considered that attack to be the model of infamy for over 60 years. Now we've done the same thing.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:15 AM on June 8, 2003

Powell in full spin mode: It's all the media's fault.
posted by muckster at 9:33 AM on June 8, 2003

That's outrageous. There goes any respect I had left for Powell.
posted by swerve at 9:49 AM on June 8, 2003

Dear Colin Powell.
If it is "nonsense" to label U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as bogus, please show me and the rest of the freaking world the WMD's or the "evidence" you had that there was any.
we've only been waiting for it since before the war.
posted by dabitch at 9:52 AM on June 8, 2003

kirkaracha: Thank you for using the proper acronym! WMD drives me nuts.
posted by Fezboy! at 9:52 AM on June 8, 2003

If it is "nonsense" to label U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as bogus, please show me and the rest of the freaking world the WMD's or the "evidence" you had that there was any.

Hear, hear. The war is over so revealing the intelligence would not jeopardize any ongoing operations. If they can't find the weapons, then they have an obligation to share the intelligence they acted on with the public.
posted by homunculus at 10:01 AM on June 8, 2003

Good god, they always come up with an official line, don't they. Questioning the tax cut is "class warfare". Now they're claiming that it's not the public who cares about the bogus pretext for war, it's just the media trying to make some hay. I used to think of Powell as being a man of honor and integrity -- at least compared to the rest of the administration; and that his lying performance at the UN was just the administration being only too glad to exploit his misplaced loyalty to them and squander his credibilty. But peddling this line pretty much finishes him in my opinion.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:39 AM on June 8, 2003

The war is over so...

Correction: the invasion is over, but the war goes on for many.
posted by homunculus at 10:44 AM on June 8, 2003

"Britain ran a covert 'dirty tricks' operation designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq.

Operation Rockingham, established by the Defense Intelligence Staff within the Ministry of Defense in 1991, was set up to 'cherry-pick' intelligence proving an active Iraqi WMD program and to ignore and quash intelligence which indicated that Saddam's stockpiles had been destroyed or wound down."
posted by muckster at 11:32 AM on June 8, 2003

Robin Cook: Shoulder to shoulder and stabbed in the back "As Rumsfeld might express it, we Britons have been suckered. Britain was conned into a war to disarm a phantom threat in which not even our major ally really believed."
posted by madamjujujive at 12:28 PM on June 8, 2003

Maybe the war was justified. I was opposed to the war, but I'm really glad that Hussein is out of power. My fear now is that Iraq will descend into civil war after we're gone, so I'm reserving judgement until we see if we can build a functioning civil society in Iraq. I'm not optimistic, but we'll see.

But that is irrelevant to whether or not the Bush administration misled the public. Even if Iraq becomes a utopia, the president has no right to mislead the public on matters of war and national security. It's premature to accuse him of lying, but the questions being raised are legitimate and necessary. If there was deceit, those who lied need to be held accountable. If there was no deceit and the intelligence was just wrong, we need to know so we can fix the problem. And if the intelligence was correct, we need to know if the weapons are still in Iraq or in shipping container sailing into one of our ports.
posted by homunculus at 12:53 PM on June 8, 2003

Quoting Powell:

"It's the media that invents words such as 'bogus,'"

Funny. It's the military that invents words such as "fubar."
posted by kfury at 10:22 AM on June 9, 2003

Any lawyers among us? Can we get a class action suit going against our government?
posted by archimago at 10:58 AM on June 9, 2003

Notice something missing from these discussions? Where's the MeFi Republican League offering their voices? Where are all the hard-liners that so littered these threads before the war? All quiet on the western front, I see. Looks like a severe case of foot-in-mouth disease. I suggest a remedy of shutting the hell up and openning your damned eyes in the future.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:40 AM on June 9, 2003

Civil_Disobedient: Take all of the following with the caveat that you are, of course, correct.

I don't think that sentiment is useful. Oddly enough, if that was a purely personal attck against one person, I would have bought it, but there were plenty of pro-war types on mefi who cam off as reasonable to me. Steve@linwood comes to mind.

While I didn't find Steve's [just an example, not a call-out] position on the war to be tenable, I found it to be more than a base regurgitation of Bill O'Reilly and Rush. No one has the "ultimate truth", even those who were demonstrably correct about this or that. I actually would like to hear what some of those folks think now, but they have been extended a pretty lousy invitation.

But, I reiterate, I also agree with you. I just think it would be really cool and cordial if I didn't. :)
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 1:28 PM on June 9, 2003

Sorry for the spleen, Ignatius. I'm just pissed off. The problem I have isn't so much with knowing "all the facts", and no side can lay claim to foreknowledge; I am more concerned with the method people use to establish a side. The Right has consistently ignored facts to bolster their case, and have demonstrated time after time that we are not beholden to policies we demand of the rest of the world. Our hypocrisy has alienated our allies, as we all knew it would (though some of us didn't seem to care), as well as destroyed what little ethical and political currency we had in the middle east after 9/11.

The Republican party has selfishly screwed this country for the next decade -- perhaps longer -- because of their stalwart inability to think before acting. They are Laertes and we are Hamlet; we are perhaps guilty of over-analysing everything to the point of inaction, but that is better than heading full-steam ahead into a situation without understanding the facts, and risk making it even worse than it began.

At one time, not so long ago, I could forgive my ignorant acquaintances for being Republican, just as I could forgive a child for thinking the world revolves around them, and that their actions hold no consequences or responsibilities. No longer. If you support a liar, a cheat, a swindler, a coward, a two-faced son-of-a-bitch -- you are a bigger enemy to freedom than al-Quaida could ever dream to be. I no longer have patience for malevolent idiots, because I have seen the effects of being passive to this: the rot and putrefaction of this country's innards.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:28 PM on June 9, 2003

I don't know if I speak for the MeFi Republican League (I'm neither a republican nor a league-member) but I've said before that the WMD thing was sorta transparent when it was used. I personally think it was a ploy used to sell the concept of war to a gullible public rather than come out and say that the war was the first step in a long-term mideast pacification plan. I think that the administration thought they could sell it as a WMD hunt, but felt they couldn't as a step in an larger plan for denying terrorists state supply and support. I think that was ultimately a mistake, and one they will pay for. Bill already seems to be coming due.

But I also think that the overall plan (using a military presence in Iraq as a gloved gauntlet to other mideastern countries to stop them from supporting terrorists) is a valid, if heavy-handed, response to 9-11 and that mefis in general tend to both oversimply the issue and ascribe malevolence where there isn't any. Republicans are not evil. They just think differently than most people here do. They have different goals and different agendas. Trying to achieve those goals does not make them idots or demons. Demonizing them might be viscerally satisfying, but it is as ignorant as demonizing anyone who thinks differently that (collective) you do and, ultimately, just as useless. Let fly with the epithets if you like, but keep in mind it does nothing to either address the issues with which you disagree with the current administration on, nor does it aid others who might be trying to determine what they themselves support and what issues they wish to be addressed. As I've said before, there's nothing wrong with not liking Bush or his administration's agenda - I myself disagree with it on many points. But namecalling remains, as always, the refuge of the willfully ignorant, and most mefi have long ago discounted the constant vituperativeness that passes for political discourse around here as the recursive collective asspatting it is.

Just my .02. Grains of salt available upon request.
posted by UncleFes at 2:46 PM on June 9, 2003

Sorry for the spleen, Ignatius.

Oh, its all good, and I hear ya, man.

I don't know what the hell made me think I got to choose other people's tone of voice, anyway. I just wonder if there isn't some number of these people that will be receptive to other viewpoints, and if it is a good idea to just perform a blanket alienation on all of them as soon as they leave the box. Would there still be people today who love Nixon if he had been so demonized? I think that some people just feel "backed in to a corner" when something they support turns out to be bunk.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 2:48 PM on June 9, 2003