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Links To Further Headlines
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Conyers issues statement in advance of hearing;
122 Dems onboard
RAW STORY
Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) issued this statement in advance of his hearing on the Downing Street
documents:
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Few issues are more important under our constitutional form of government than the decision to go to
war and place our soldiers lives at risk.
It is no insignificant matter when in the fall of 2002 President Bush told us that war would be his
last resort. It is not unimportant when on March 6, 2003, the president promised us, "I've not made up [my] mind about military
action."
Over the last two months, the veracity of those statements has - to put it mildly -- come into question:
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On May 1, the London Times released the now infamous Downing Street Minutes, in which the head of Britain's
intelligence agency reported "military action [by the U.S.] was now seen as inevitable ... and "intelligence and facts were
being fixed around the policy." A former senior U.S. official subsequently told Knight Ridder that the minutes were "an absolutely
accurate description of what transpired."
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On May 29, further documents were released revealing that in the summer of 2002, British and U.S. aircraft
had doubled their rates of bombing in Iraq, in an apparent attempt to provoke an excuse for war.
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Last Sunday, the London Times released six new British documents corroborating the Downing Street Minutes
and indicating that as early as March of 2002, our government had decided it would be "necessary to create the conditions"
to justify war.
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Today Newsweek is reporting that two high ranking British Officials confirmed that by 2002, Iraq's
nuclear weapons program was "effectively frozen" and there was "no recent evidence" tying Iraq to international terrorism.
If these disclosures are true - and so far no one from the Bush Administration has bothered to respond
to our letters -- they establish a prima facie case of going to war under false pretenses. This means that more than 1,600
brave Americans and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis would have lost their lives for a lie.
That is why we are here today. That is why 122 Members of Congress -- which as of today includes the
Minority Leader -- have asked the president to explain his actions. That is why more than 550,000 Americans are joining with
us in demanding answers from the Administration.
We are here because many of us find it unacceptable for any Administration - be it Democratic or Republican
- to put our troops in harms way based on false information. The fact that our intelligence turned out to be flawed in no
way absolves those who would intentionally mislead our nation or its allies.
We can't do anything in this hearing to change the facts on the ground in Iraq today, but we can pledge
today to do everything within our power to find out how we got here and make sure it never happens again.
Originally published on Thursday June 16, 2005.
LIVE-Coverage of the Conyers Public Hearing
Thursday, June 16
Democratic Members of House Judiciary Cmte. Hearing on Downing St. Memo and Iraq War
On
C-SPAN3 at 2:30pm ET
and
Special Coverage
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...and let's not forget:
| Insiders told Newsnight that planning [for the Iraq war] began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking
office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US. [BBC News] |
Bush on the Start of the
Iraq War: "I feel good!"
| Minutes before President Bush's solemn announcement that the US military were in action
against Iraq he vigorously pumped his fist and declared: "I feel good". [Mirror]
His subsequent actions were mistakenly fed out early and he was unaware that his antics were being
broadcast live on the BBC and several other satellite news channels.
or download the 5 MB video with dutch comments, "BushGroomed2.mpeg" in the downloads section of DangerousCitizen.com.
BushGroomed2.mpeg |
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See also:
Bush's Words Come Back to Haunt Him
"Bring 'em on": Details of Dead and Wounded in Iraq
What Really Happened
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Ask the God Damn Question!
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Jesse, Editor – TvNewsLIES.org June 7, 2005 George
W. Bush, during his press conference with Tony Blair, 6/7/05 said, “Saddam would not comply." (Comply to what?
We are never told! But apparently whatever he did not comply to was important enough to start a war over but not important
enough to ever explain to the world!)
After a single question about the Downing Street Memo (with no follow up) was
asked, (in between the questions about Africa - the American media suddenly discovered Africa), Bush & Blair once again
repeated their rhetoric about how they went to war with Iraq only after Saddam Hussein refused to comply. COMPLY WITH WHAT?
Why, after 2 years, hasn’t a single reporter asked the most obvious question of the entire crime that is the
invasion of Iraq…WHAT DID SADAM REFUSE? Are they referring to the US imposed Catch 22 demand that he disarm Iraq of
the WMD’s that IRAQ DID NOT HAVE?
WHAT THE HELL DID WE GO TO WAR FOR? Saddam permitted intrusive inspections
with NO TIME LIMIT! WHAT DID HE REFUSE? We are told time and time again that the choice was Saddam’s and we invaded
because he refused to comply, and to this date we have never been told what this means. Even more outrageous is that there
is not a single member of the American corporate news media that even asked this question!!!
Is every reporter who
has had access to Bush and Blair so stupid as not to realize that this question has not only never been answered, IT HAS NEVER
BEEN ASKED! Can you have any better indication that the media are complicit in the illegal war crime that is the invasion
of Iraq?
Somebody, please explain this to me?
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Read the blog with comments at:
TvNewsLIES.org
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Iraq:
Setting the Record Straight
A Report of the Project for the New American
Century
April 2005
Our report, “Iraq: Setting the Record Straight,”
focuses on the question of Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs. It elaborates his failure to comply with UN resolutions for
twelve years, beginning with the Gulf War cease-fire agreement in 1991, and ending with UN Resolution 1441 in 2002 and his
removal from power in March 2003. The report also shows that the case for removing Saddam from power went beyond the existence
of weapons stockpiles. President Bush’s decision to act, the report notes, “derived from a perception of Saddam’s
intentions and capabilities, both existing and potential, and was grounded in the reality of Saddam’s prior behavior.”
We suspect some of the report’s material will come
as a surprise to a number of readers. This is because much of the reporting on the documents and statements of UN inspection
teams and U.S. government officials on Saddam’s weapons programs, and his compliance with UN resolutions, has left wide
gaps in the public’s understanding of what the president faced on March 18, 2003, and what we have learned since. There
have also been administration critics who have selectively used material in the historical record to reinforce their case
against the president’s policy. With this in mind, our report attempts to give readers a fuller account of what we knew
before the war, and what we know now.
Read the full report at
and the book:
Read the editorials!
Quote WhatReallyHappened:
William Kristol (Bill Kristol) is chairman of "The New American Cenrtury" and they
have already started writing papers that claim Bush and his administration DID NOT claim Saddam had WMD but that it was the
Clinton administration who first said that Iraq had WMD. The idea is to neutralize de democrats in congress that (according
to this document) share the blame for the false claims made for the war.
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FLASHBACK:
Published on Thursday, October 28, 2004 by
GNN.tv
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Two
Years Before 9/11, Candidate Bush was Already Talking Privately About Attacking Iraq, According to His Former Ghost Writer |
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by Russ Baker |
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HOUSTON -- Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential
candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former
ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.
"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author
and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is
to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis
out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade·.if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste
it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." Herskowitz
said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive
military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake
of the September 11 attacks. "Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd barely crawled out of the bunker." |
Read all at
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Posted on Tue, Jun. 07, 2005
BY DAVID JACKSON
The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - President Bush and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday disputed a 2002 British government memo that said the Bush team "fixed" weapons intelligence
around a preset decision to invade Iraq.
"We worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully," Bush said after a White House meeting with his
British counterpart.
Blair, who won re-election after a brutal campaign centered on his support of the Iraq war, said: "The facts were not being
fixed, in any shape or form at all."
snip......
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Sen. Kennedy speaks out on Downing Street Memo: 'Twisted intelligence; Distorted facts'
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John Conyers:
Letter to Pres Bush Concerning the "Downing
Street Minutes"
Friends -- As many of you know, my website has been
overwhelmed with responses to the "Downing Street Minutes" and many citizens sending emails. At times, I am receiving ten
emails a minute. To reduce traffic to the site, I am taking down the email box for the time being and starting an open thread,
where email traffic will be redirected. Excuse the caps, but to clear up any confusion: THE LETTER ABOUT THE DOWNING
STREEET MINUTES, HOWEVER, IS STILL AVAILABLE THROUGH THE LINK TO THE LEFT OR NEAR THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE.
If you want to give me your two cents, feel free
to do it here. Please keep it respectful, however
read the letter and sign it!
Letter to Pres Bush Concerning the "Downing Street Minutes"
What is the Downing Street Memo?
A short explanation to get you started:
| The Downing Street
"Memo" is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on
July 23, 2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The Times of London printed the text of this document on Sunday, May 1, 2005, but to date US media coverage has been limited.
This site is intended to act as a resource for anyone who wants to understand the facts revealed in this document.
The contents of the memo are shocking. The minutes detail how our government did not believe Iraq was a greater threat than other nations; how intelligence was "fixed" to sell the case for war to the American public; and how the Bush Administration’s public assurances
of "war as a last resort" were at odds with their privately stated intentions.
When asked, British officials "did not dispute the document's authenticity." and a senior American official has described it as "absolutely accurate." Yet the Bush administration continues to simultaneously sidestep the issue while attempting to cast doubt
on the memo’s authenticity. |
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Congressman John Conyers is calling on American citizens to sign on to a letter to the President that demands a response to questions originally posed by Conyers and 88 other members
of Congress in a similar letter dated May 5, 2005. Conyers has committed to personally delivering the letter to the White
House when it garners 100,000 250,000 500,000 citizen signatures.
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Nobody wants to go to war. We trust our leaders to shed blood in our name only when absolutely necessary.
But the facts revealed by the Downing Street Memo force us to ask ourselves: Was I misled? Did President Bush tell me the
truth when he said he would not take us to war unless absolutely necessary?
More than two years after the start of the Iraq War, Americans are just learning that our government
was dead set on invasion, even while it claimed to be pursuing diplomacy. Please join us in demanding that we get to the bottom of this issue. |
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The Fix Was In
Did Bush Deliberately Deceive America About Iraq?
By Rep. JOHN CONYERS
We have reached a point where all but the most delusional
enthusiasts of the Iraq war have now acknowledged that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction at the time of the
U.S. invasion and likely for over a decade preceding the war. Fox News and the President were slow to acknowledge this fact,
but now have.
Unfortunately, it seems this rare consensus has lulled many
into failing to ask the follow-up question: why were the President and other high-ranking administration officials so definitive
in their statements that Iraq possessed WMD? This question is not of a merely historical significance: we deserve to know
whether these statements were the result of a "massive intelligence failure" as some have contended or a deliberate deception
of the Congress and the American people.
Essentially, the question boils down to what lawyers call "mens
rea". Before a defendant can be convicted of a crime the judge or jury must find not only that the defendant committed the
wrongful act but also did so with a state of mind indicating culpability. In the case of a fraud, the jury must find that
there was intent to deceive. In the case of Iraq, the weight of evidence continues to accumulate indicating that the American
people and Congress may well have been the victims of a deliberate deception.
U.N.: Weapons Equipment Missing in Iraq
U.N.: Weapons Equipment Missing in Iraq
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 3, 8:37 AM ET
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to
make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in
Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.
U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have
been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment
had both civilian and military uses.
snip.....
Read the report in full
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Pentagon Strike
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Pentagon Strike - Objectif Pentagone - Anschlag
aufs Pentagon - Attacco al Pentagono
Napad na Pentagon - Objetivo Pentágono - Ataque ao Pentágono
see the video!
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Iraq Veterans Against the War
IVAW Statement on the Second Anniversary of the War
Today marks the second anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a key
milestone in the current U.S. Government’s campaign of lies and deceit common since 9/11. We were first told that there
was a link between Iraq and the horrible 9/11 attacks. But there was none. Then we were told that Iraq had Weapons of Mass
Destruction; yet only a few old warheads and some dormant bacterial cultures have been found despite rigorous searching. Then
finally, we were told that Saddam Hussein was training terrorists to attack the United States, but no terrorist presence seems
to have existed in Iraq prior to the massive build-up in early 2003. Post-invasion Iraq, however, has clearly become a hotbed
for new terrorist threats.
Read more here
Vermont Towns vote to bring troops home now
In Vermont, 48 town meetings voted last night to condemn the war in Iraq and to call on political leaders
to bring home the state's National Guard.
Vermont has lost more soldiers per capita than any state, and has the second highest mobilization rate
for its National Guard and reservists.
Read more at The Chicago Tribune or at Democracy Now!
Will the recent elections end the violence in Iraq?
Despite the Bush Administration's spin on the success of the elections in Iraq, we
know that democracy cannot be achieved under U.S. occupation. Our troops are still in harm's way, Iraqi children and other
civilians continue to die, and billions that could be spent at home are being wasted in Iraq. History also shows us that an
election -- even with a high voter turnout -- does not spell success. Just look at the following excerpt from a 1967 New
York Times article about elections in Vietnam:
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote :
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong
Terror By Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times
September 4th, 1967
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the
size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According
to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked
reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. ...
... A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President
Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam.
After this 1967 election, U.S. troops remained for another 8 years with 50,000 of our men and women
+ 3 million Vietnamese dead. Let's not have history repeat itself. We know that the only way to move toward peace and democracy
in Iraq is immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces. Bring the troops home now!
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