http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000147.htmBlogged by JC on 06.23.05 @ 07:51 AM ET
My Hometown Paper Weighs In on DSM
Kudos to my hometown paper, the Detroit Free Press, for weighing in yesterday on the Downing Street Minutes in a major way. Not only do they include a guest editorial from yours truly (excerpts from my letter to the president demanding answers), but they penned their own editorial declaring that the DSM are important news. Among other things, their editorial states, "Most important for today, the evidence 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." Both are worth a read.
June 22, 2005
Excerpts from the letter U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., delivered to the White House last week, containing more than 550,000 e-mail signatures:
Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo ... comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, ... before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July 2002, Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet, a month later, you stated you were still willing to "look at all options." ....
In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remain a serious and lingering question. ...
We would ask that you respond to the following questions:
1) Do you ... dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? ...
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors ... to help with the justification for the war?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
... As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. ... We would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Conyers letter was "simply rehashing old debates that have already been discussed."
http://www.freep.com/voices/editorials/ememos22e_20050622.htmThe Downing Street Memos
June 22, 2005
Granted, finding a way to end the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq is at present more pressing than re-examining the rationale that was developed to start the war there more than two years ago. But the so-called Downing Street memos are still too significant to be dismissed as simply old news -- as the White House would like -- or left to historians. They speak to the credibility of the administration of President George W. Bush, which is now telling the American people that significant progress is being made in Iraq and the murderous insurgency there is in its final throes. Meantime, U.S. military leaders say rebel attacks have remained constant at 50-60 a day, and last month was the deadliest for Iraqi civilians since the March 2003 U.S. invasion.
The Downing Street memos, excerpts of which you can read on this page, along with other commentary about them on the opposite page, shine some light on the internal thinking of the most secretive U.S. administration in modern times. They were prepared by top British officials as Prime Minister Tony Blair pondered his critical decision to join Bush in the war against Iraq. Based on meetings with administration officials, they support the premise that, despite public claims to the contrary, the Bush administration saw war against Iraq as a first, not last, option after the 9/11 attacks and manipulated bad intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
"The truth," a top British official said in a March 22, 2002, memo to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, "is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September ... the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up." Three days later, in a memo to Blair, Straw said that "there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL (Osama bin Laden) and Al Qaida."
The United States, of course, found no deadly weapons in Iraq after toppling Hussein from power; and Al Qaeda had no presence in the country until the insurgency erupted. The eight memos also show British concern, bordering on alarm, for the lack of American plans for post-war Iraq at a time when the Bush administration was selling the belief that Iraqis would welcome their liberation and quickly embrace democracy. It has not, obviously, been such a smooth transition. Most important for today, the evidence 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.
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