Say it isn't so, George!

[Neil D]

Published June 17, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A senior House Democrat urged Congress to launch an official inquiry to determine whether President Bush misled the nation about the reasons for toppling Saddam Hussein, as a small, bipartisan group of congressmen proposed Thursday to mandate that the U.S. begin drawing down its troops in Iraq by October next year.

The developments came as the bill for the war continued to grow, with the House debating a measure that would provide an additional $45 billion for military operations in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. That would come on top of the $350 billion for combat and reconstruction appropriated so far.

Rep. Charles Rangel of New York was among Democratic House members at a forum to air demands that the White House provide more information about what led to the decision to go to war in Iraq.

"Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war," said Rangel, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee organized the forum to investigate implications in a British document known as the Downing Street memo. The memo refers to meetings by British officials with senior administration officials and says the White House was determined to fix thin evidence about weapons of mass destruction to fit the predetermined policy of ousting Hussein.

Conyers noted statements by Bush in the run-up to invasion that war would be a last resort. "The veracity of those statements has, to put it mildly, come into question," he said.

Conyers delivered petitions signed by 105 members of Congress and about 540,000 signatures sent via e-mail to a security gate at the White House Thursday evening. The petitions urged Bush to thoroughly answer questions about the memo. The group MoveOn PAC helped Conyers collect the signatures.

War decision debated

In the opening hours of the forum, witnesses spoke mainly about their views on the decision to go to war and not the memo, which the Bush administration has dismissed.

"We are having this discussion today because we failed to have it three years ago when we went to war," former Ambassador Joseph Wilson said.

Wilson wrote a 2003 newspaper opinion piece criticizing the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. After the piece appeared, someone in the Bush administration leaked the identity of Wilson's wife as a CIA operative, exposing her cover.

Wilson has said he believes the leak was retaliation.

The Downing Street memo states the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," recounting a July 23, 2002, meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his national security team. The meeting took place after British officials returned from Washington.

U.S. officials and Blair deny the assertion about intelligence and facts being "fixed," a comment that the memo attributes to the chief of British intelligence at the time.

Meanwhile, with polls showing public support for the war and the Bush administration falling, two Republican and two Democratic congressmen introduced a resolution that would require the president to announce by year's end a plan for withdrawing troops.

It is the first such resolution by lawmakers from both parties, although most Democrats and six House Republicans voted in 2002 against sending troops to Iraq.

While many Democrats and some Republicans repeatedly have voted against continued funding for the war, there has been no concerted joint effort before to bring troops home.

A low-water mark of 41 percent of adults said in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month that they supported Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. And a Gallup poll released Monday found that 6 in 10 Americans say they think the United States should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq.

Among the resolution's sponsors are Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), who voted for the Iraq war but now says the United States has done what it can in Iraq and the reason for going to war--Hussein's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction--has been proved false.

"After 1,700 deaths, over 12,000 wounded and $200 billion spent, we believe it is time to have this debate and discussion on this resolution," Jones said.

Associated Press

[Neil D]

Just hearsay, or the new Watergate tapes?

David Paul Kuhn explains how the Democratic representative John Conyers defied Republicans to call for an inquiry into the 'Downing Street memo'

Friday June 17, 2005

Forced to the basement of the US Capitol and prevented from holding an official hearing, Michigan representative John Conyers defied Republicans and held a forum on Thursday calling for a congressional inquiry into the infamous British document known as the "Downing Street memo".

Three dozen Democratic representatives shuffled in and out of a small room to join Mr Conyers in declaring that the Downing Street memo was the first "primary source" document to report that prewar intelligence was intentionally manipulated in order make a case for invading Iraq.

Not only did Republican leaders consign the Democrats to the basement, but Democrats also claimed that the House scheduled 11 votes concurrent with the forum to maximise the difficulty of attending it. Because the forum wasn't an official hearing, it won't become a part of the Congressional record - but members worked to make sure that the attending media and activists captured their words for posterity.

The Downing Street memo, so far disputed by Washington and London in some of its details, but not its authenticity, reports on minutes of a meeting between the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and his national security team on July 23 2002.

First reported by the London Sunday Times on May 1 this year, the internal memo states that, in the opinion of "C" (Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British secret intelligence service), "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [bush administration's] policy". The author of the memo added that it "seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action".

Since then, several other British government memos have become public that also make the case that the White House was planning the war long before it admitted to doing so.

The Democratic representatives attending the forum said they believed that if such information had got out prior to the war, neither the House nor the Senate would have supported the October 11 2002 congressional vote giving the president the power to order the invasion.

To the Democrats taking turns to speak at the forum on Thursday, the memo was tantamount to the first word of tapes in the Nixon White House during the Watergate scandal. Impeachment was on these representatives' minds as four long-time critics of the war in Iraq, including the former ambassador Joe Wilson, repeatedly urged Congress to hold an official inquiry into the validity and origins of the Downing Street memo.

"We sent our troops to war under dubious pretences," asserted Mr Wilson, who travelled, at the government's behest, to Niger in February 2002. There, he discovered President Bush's claim that Iraq was attempting to obtain uranium in Africa was false. The White House later retracted the accusation.

Speaking on the question of impeachment, representative Charles B Rangel, D-NY, asked, point blank: "Has the president misled, or deliberately misled, the Congress?"

The answer is at the heart of Mr Conyers' push for further investigation. Misleading Congress is an impeachable offence, and Mr Conyers' petition for an inquiry into the memo seemed a first step in that direction - though no one made that call outright.

"Many of us find it unacceptable to put our brave men and women in harm's way, based on false information," Mr Conyers said.

Though most of those at the forum voted against the war in Iraq, Mr Conyers, who is the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, insisted the forum was not partisan politicking, but a function of their oversight duty.

As members of Congress crammed into the small room, no bigger than 30ft by 50ft, Democratic representatives spoke and then scurried out to make scheduled votes. After being denied a hearing, then forced to the basement, which representative Jim McDermott, D-Wash, called unprecedented, the Democrats believed Republicans had purposely scheduled 11 votes to interrupt the forum.

"Absolutely, it was absolutely timed," Mr McDermott said in an interview after the forum. "There was no need to do it then. And they were having a major appropriations hearing at the same time. That was also to keep people away, because appropriations are your chance to get money for your district that you've been working all year on."

McDermott spoke as representative Maxine Waters, D-Calif, delayed her aide and sprinted down the hall in her high heels to do an interview with Pacifica Radio. Covered mostly by liberal media outlets, the forum got some mainstream news attention, from the AP to the Baltimore Sun to CNN.

Democrats who dropped by included representatives Barney Frank, of Massachusetts, Charles Rangel, of New York, Virginia's Jim Moran, and Barbara Lee of Oakland, California.

Following the forum, Mr Conyers led Democratic representatives and activists on a march to the White House, hoping to deliver a letter with more than 550,000 signatures of the public and more than 120 members of Congress, mostly - but not all - Democrats. The White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press that Conyers was "simply trying to rehash old debates".

As he left, the mild but indefatigable Mr Conyers was a little angry that the forum was denied a proper room in the Capitol.

"They tried to shut us out," he said after the hearing. "They tried to cut us off. They put us in a tiny room. The significance shouldn't be lost on anybody.

The Guardian

[Jeannieb43]

Neil, it's more important than the Watergate tapes !

The Downing Street Memos show that Dubya was determined to go to war in Iraq even before 9/11/01 -- and that he found a pretext of WMDs and terrorism to "justify" it.

http://www.freep.com/voices/editorials/ememos22e_20050622.htm

"Most important for today, the evidence [Downing Street Memo] reflects an administration that makes a major decision and then finds or fits the evidence to back it up and sell it. That's not thoughtful policy. It's marketing."

Clinton was impeached for a lie about sex. Bush should be impeached for a lie causing thousands of our young men to be shipped off to be killed in battle, unnecessarily.

[Neil D]

Quote:

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Clinton was impeached for a lie about sex. Bush should be impeached for a lie causing thousands of our young men to be shipped off to be killed in battle, unnecessarily.

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Indeed! I reckon that killing our own young over an illegal war is something tanamount to prison. But, that's me...What do I know...I am a civilian... :2cents: