[Mb-civic] Members of Congress Call on Bush for Answers on Secret Iraq Plan

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Eighty-Eight Members of Congress Call on Bush for 
Answers on Secret Iraq Plan
    Raw Story  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051005F.shtml

    Thursday 05 May 2005

    Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by 
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer 
questions about a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW 
STORY has learned.

    In a letter, Conyers and other members say they are disappointed 
the mainstream media has not touched the revelations.

    "Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too 
busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a 
bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The 
London Times reports that the British government and the United 
States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before 
authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had 
discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."

    "The Times reports, based on a newly discovered document, that in 
2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a meeting in which he 
expressed his support for "regime change" through the use of force in 
Iraq and was warned by the nation's top lawyer that such an action 
would be illegal," he adds. "Blair also discussed the need for America 
to "create" conditions to justify the war."

    The members say they are seeking an inquiry.

    "This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during 
wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway 
bride," he remarks. "To prevent that from occuring, I am circulating the 
following letter among my House colleagues and asking them to sign 
on to it."

    The letter follows.

    May 5, 2005

    The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of 
America The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20500

    Dear Mr. President:

    We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London 
Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain 
had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before 
the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to 
engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this 
to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury 
Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council 
official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. 
However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister 
Blair's representative claimed the document contained "nothing new." 
If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding 
the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own 
Administration.

    The Sunday Times obtained a leaked document with the minutes of 
a secret meeting from highly placed sources inside the British 
Government. Among other things, the document revealed:

    * Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a July 2002 meeting, at which he 
discussed military options, having already committed himself to 
supporting President Bush's plans for invading Iraq.

    * British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case 
for war was "thin" as "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and 
his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."

    * A separate secret briefing for the meeting said that Britain and 
America had to "create" conditions to justify a war.

    * A British official "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There 
was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as 
inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, 
justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence 
and facts were being fixed around the policy."

    As a result of this recent disclosure, we would like to know the 
following:

    1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of 
the leaked document?

    2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of 
allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did 
you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to 
invade prior to this time?

    3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons 
inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the 
minutes indicate?

    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?

    We have of course known for some time that subsequent to the 
invasion there have been a variety of varying reasons proffered to 
justify the invasion, particularly since the time it became evident that 
weapons of mass destruction would not be found. This leaked 
document - essentially acknowledged by the Blair government - is the 
first confirmation that the rationales were shifting well before the 
invasion as well.

    Given the importance of this matter, we would ask that you respond 
to this inquiry as promptly as possible. Thank you.

    Sincerely,

    Members who have already signed letter:
    Neil Abercrombie
    Brian Baird
    Tammy Baldwin
    Xavier Becerra
    Shelley Berkley
    Eddie Bernice Johnson
    Sanford Bishop
    Earl Blumenauer
    Corrine Brown
    Sherrod Brown
    G.K. Butterfield
    Emanuel Cleaver
    James Clyburn
    John Conyers
    Jim Cooper
    Elijah Cummings
    Danny Davis
    Peter DeFazio
    Diana DeGette
    Bill Delahunt
    Rosa DeLauro
    Lloyd Doggett
    Sam Farr
    Bob Filner
    Harold Ford, Jr.
    Barney Frank
    Al Green
    Raul Grijalva
    Louis Gutierrez
    Alcee Hastings
    Maurice Hinchey
    Rush Holt
    Jay Inslee
    Sheila Jackson Lee
    Jessie Jackson Jr.
    Marcy Kaptur
    Patrick Kennedy
    Dale Kildee
    Carolyn Kilpatrick
    Dennis Kucinich
    William Lacy Clay
    Barbara Lee
    John Lewis
    Zoe Lofgren
    Donna M. Christensen
    Carolyn Maloney
    Ed Markey
    Carolyn McCarthy
    Jim McDermott
    James McGovern
    Cynthia McKinney
    Martin Meehan
    Kendrick Meek
    Gregory Meeks
    Michael Michaud
    George Miller
    Gwen S. Moore
    James Moran
    Jerrold Nadler
    Grace Napolitano
    James Oberstar
    John Olver
    Major Owens
    Frank Pallone
    Donald Payne
    Charles Rangel
    Bobby Rush
    Bernie Sanders
    Linda Sanchez
    Jan Schakowsky
    Jose Serrano
    Ike Skelton
    Louise Slaughter
    Hilda Solis
    Pete Stark
    Ellen Tauscher
    Bennie Thompson
    Edolphus Towns
    Stephanie Tubbs Jones
    Chris Van Hollen
    Nydia Velazquez
    Debbie Wasserman Schultz
    Maxine Waters
    Diane Watson
    Melvin Watt
    Robert Wexler
    Lynn Woolsey
    David Wu
    Albert R. Wynn
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


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