Newspaper on Bush Impeachment:"Why Not?"

Newspaper on Bush Impeachment:
"Why Not?"

Brian Clarey of Yes Weekly, the alternative weekly newspaper in Greensboro, NC, has written about Ralph Nader's and others' calls for the impeachment of George W. Bush in the aftermath of the Downing Street memo leak. Clarey writes:

"And why not? The US Constitution outlines the grounds for impeachment thusly: “The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

President Clinton was impeached in 1998 by the House for perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power, though the Senate later acquitted him of these charges in a close vote. Richard Nixon, who resigned before the impeachment process reached a vote, also had charges of obstruction and abuse leveled against him.

Clinton had an affair with an intern. Nixon took the fall for a GOP rife with corruption and intrigue rather than give the names of his shady cronies, with whom he was inextricably linked. Both did what they could to prevent the truth from surfacing and both paid a price."

Unless I am mistaken, I believe this is the first newspaper I've seen to support an impeachment of Bush. There is a comment on the newpaper's website (after the article) by a "Jim McDermott." He doesn't identify himself as Congressman Jim McDermott, who has been an outspoken critic of the President. I can't help but wonder, though...


UPDATE: Dave Zweifel had this piece, titled "We've seen enough to impeach Bush," in the Madison Capitol Times on June 20th.

The Relevance of the Downing Street Memo

The Relevance of the Downing Street Memo

In November 2003, critics of the Iraq war could not believe their own ears. Neocon Richard Perle admitted, quite freely, that the attack upon Iraq was initiated with naked contempt for international law. He was proud of the part he had played in the illegal war.

At the time, defenders of the British government had said, in short, "Oh, no! Not Britain. We would never agree that the rule of law should be ignored, like the United States is doing."

The Downing Street memos show that Britain was, indeed, willing to participate in the political bamboozling of the masses in order to join the "US hegemon" in the war upon Iraq.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Perle gave away the game that day, and the Downing Street memos' leak has forever connected and sealed the Perle admission with the lies of Bush and Blair.

Read these excerpts from the Guardian article, November 20, 2003 (LINK):

"International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law..."

____________________


"..Mr Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official justifications for war, according to Rabinder Singh QC, who represented CND and also participated in Tuesday's event.

Certainly the British government, he said, "has never advanced the suggestion that it is entitled to act, or right to act, contrary to international law in relation to Iraq".
[*note: see Downing Street memos - the divergence in opinion may have been there, but the intent was to go along with the U.S. - regardless. The plan was to help the U.S. to establish a casus belli for war. They ultimately failed to convince the Security Council.]


The Pentagon adviser's views, he added, underlined "a divergence of view between the British govern ment and some senior voices in American public life [who] have expressed the view that, well, if it's the case that international law doesn't permit unilateral pre-emptive action without the authority of the UN, then the defect is in international law".

Mr Perle's view is not the official one put forward by the White House. Its main argument has been that the invasion was justified under the UN charter, which guarantees the right of each state to self-defence, including pre-emptive self-defence. On the night bombing began, in March, Mr Bush reiterated America's "sovereign authority to use force" to defeat the threat from Baghdad.

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has questioned that justification, arguing that the security council would have to rule on whether the US and its allies were under imminent threat..."

Note: I rediscovered this Guardian article while going through my own archives here at Iddybud. Sometimes blogging really pays off.

The Iraq War: Where Are We Going With It?

The Iraq War:
Where Are We Going With It?

"I think it has been a remarkable success story to date when you look at what has been accomplished overall and I think the president deserves credit for it."

- Dick Cheney offers his assessment of US policy in Iraq in Autumn, 2004.

Statements like this one may have helped George W. Bush to win the 2004 American election (along with those "special" Diebold machines, a very Bush-friendly Ohio Attorney General, and scaring the living shit out of Americans with exaggerated tales of terror), but in the end, they have not helped him to convince the public that he is winning the fight for Iraq.

Bush's war has been a failure, so much so that the U.S. may now be resorting to the act of deliberately initiating civil war in Iraq in order to achieve its political goals.

Here's the conundrum: A powerful resistance front in Iraq, including the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) and the Sadrists, will refuse any kind of dialogue with Iraq's new Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari unless there's a definite timetable for the complete withdrawal of the occupation forces. Back in America, the public is screaming for a timetable for a pull-out of U.S. troops, and Republicans like Walter Jones of North Carolina are making public appeals in Congress for something concrete from the Bushites.

No one really seems to want the U.S. troops to be where they are today - except the neocons and the Bush administration, who sent the troops there on the wings of the most dreadful lie ever told to America.

In March, 2004, while Bush was preparing to return to the UN for the proposal of a new resolution, he had said:

"Al-Qaida wants us out of Iraq because al-Qaida wants to use Iraq as an example of defeating freedom and democracy." -(LINK)

We know this is not exactly the truth. It wasn't only Al-Qaida. An overwhelming number of everyday Iraqis would like the U.S. to leave.

Before the public lowers the boom on Bush - seeking to impeach him for the disaster he created when he misled the nation - his administration must find the fastest way out.

The American public thinks Iraq is a mess. Consult any current public poll and you'll see for yourself.

Sunni Arabs and Kurds are virtually on the brink of civil war in northern Iraq at this time. The Kurds claim the city of Kirkuk as their own, and they want Kirkuk to be the capital of the Kurdish region, a goal that inspires ire in most Iraqis. Kirkuk has been described, even by U.S. officials, as a “powder keg.” It also happens to sit on top of one of Iraq’s richest oilfields. What the Kurds want most of all is to control Northern Oil - part of the Iraqi National Oil Co, in charge of the oilfields west of Kirkuk. It is apparent that Sunni Arabs will not settle peaceably with the Kurds on this issue.

In the absence of a realistic political solution, Iraq may eventually be forced to disintegrate, which would be a geopolitical nightmare - destabilizing the entire Middle East. Interestingly, a significant number of Kurds would like to see this happen, after years of seeing their people murdered at the hands of brutal dictators. The Bush administration fears that self-determination, desired by most Kurds of northern Iraq, could lead to the establishment of an independent Kurdish state and seriously challenge US control of the oil resources of northern Iraq.

According to a June 10th article in the Asia Times by Pepe Escobar, there are neocon-friendly forces in Washington DC who are planning a "divide-and-rule" plan for Iraq, which would be a way to keep a weakened Iraq from being united and democratic, and this is in direct opposition to what the President has told the American people he wants to achieve. The objective would be "the perpetuation of Arab disunity."

Escobar says:

The plan would be "sold" under the admission that the recently elected, Shi'ite-dominated Jaafari government is incapable of controlling Iraq and bringing the Sunni Arab guerrillas to the negotiating table. More significantly, the plan is an exact replica of an extreme right-wing Israeli plan to balkanize Iraq - an essential part of the balkanization of the whole Middle East.

The act of the U.S. resorting to 'Iraqification' - using Shi'ites and Kurds to fight Sunnis - is a sign that we know we have lost any vision we may have had about "winning" the war. It has been an unwinnable war all along, and President Bush was never up-front with the American public about that fact. (Just as he was never up-front while leading the American masses toward war).

Escobar continues:

"Call it Iraqification; what it actually means is sectarian fever translated into civil war. Operation Lightning - the highly publicized counter-insurgency tour de force with its 40,000 mostly Shi'ite troops rounding up Sunni Arabs - can be read as the first salvo of the civil war......'Iraqification' means in fact 'Salvadorization'. No wonder old faces are back in the game."

Escobar writes that the Sunni-Arab guerillas "have the means to destabilize the country for decades, if they're up for it." If I am reading Escobar's Asia Times article correctly, and I hope it isn't true, then I can assume he is telling us that the U.S. desires to keep these diverse political terrorist-groups at each others' throats - which would mean a sustained civil war.

Many Kurds, who have hoped for independence, are dancing with anticipatory joy.
A Kurdish citizen in Iraq has written:

"...of the Kurds who took part in the elections, a whopping 98 % expressed a desire for a civil divorce. In the branch of science called politics, the fancy name for this kind of behavior is called self-determination. It is considered a political axiom in much of the world except in the lands administered by dictatorships. Now that Iraq is a ward of Uncle Sam, you would think that the Kurdish desire to go it alone would have been respected and accepted. ......to paraphrase Senator John Edwards, help is finally on its way to the Kurds and Kurdistan, and it is with some sadness that I note, not from the children of Jefferson, but from the disciples of enforced ignorance who have vowed to destroy Iraq. When their work is complete, we will take our place behind East Timor as the newest freed nation in the world. Then, and only then, I will rise for the dance of liberation and emancipation in honor of all those Kurdish patriots who shed their blood so that I could see freedom........I can’t wait for the RIP sign to rise over the abomination that cost five million Kurds of Iraq 250.000 deaths in 35 years on the watch of one monster from Tikrit. When that day comes, and if by some magic I were granted a wish, I would have loved nothing better to do than rush the news to the high heavens and inform Winston Churchill, the British Colonial Secretary, that his out of wedlock bastard has, finally, thank God, died. After rejoicing in his heartache, I would have looked up for Uncle Omar of Halapja and cheered him up with the good news that the flag of Kurdistan now flutters over the memorial that honors him and his friends in the city of Halapja."- By Kani Xulam, KurdishMedia.com

Nikolas K. Gvosdev, editor of The National Interest is not so sure that "democracy" will provide the solution to what ails Iraq. He says:

Consider Bosnia, where efforts to forge a unified country among three hostile ethno-religious groups has proven extremely difficult — even when the parties share a common language. We forget today how Bosnia's first free elections in November 1990 were cited as a triumph for democracy. Sixteen months later, Europe's most destructive conflict since the end of World War II erupted.

Bush was unprepared for what would happen once he sated his thirst for deliberate revenge and tackled Saddam, unilaterally, while lying our nation into the war. What he has done, by going into this half-assed, is to not only increase terrorism, but also to open Iraq up to civil war (whether it's intentional, as Escobar contends, or not). The greatly increased risk of political influence upon vulnerable regional Iraqi populations by anti-American forces in Middle Eastern nations (such as Iran) cannot extend a promise of security, stablity, freedom or democracy anytime soon.

Great job, Bush administration.

June Brashares, RNC Protestor, Goes On Trial

June Brashares, RNC Protestor, Goes On Trial

A trial in Manhattan's Criminal Court has begun for June Brashares, the Code Pink activist who was mauled on the floor of the Republican National Convention when young GOP goons realized she had gotten in with an anti-Bush sign. They ganged up on her and attacked her, literally dragging her from the convention hall. They're trying to say she had shoes on and kicked a man, but June has sworn she was weaering no shoes at the time - and an ABC reporter will be able to attest to that fact. Worse, June was injured herself - and it was captured on camera. You may wish to follow the developments of this case. The RNC would love to crucify her, I'm sure.

I'd recommend Rox Populi for a blogger's insight. There is a statement from Brashares at the blog, icluding this excerpt:

"..the courts shouldn’t be going after people for expressing their opinions at political events, we need justice in regards to the U.S. Administration that has lied and is lying about its actions that have resulted in the unnecessary death of thousands upon thousands of people."

DSM: White House Can't Raise a Reasonable Defense

DSM: White House Can't Raise a Reasonable Defense
So they spin and hope the media will comply, as they have in the past

White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said that the Conyers letter was "simply rehashing old debates that have already been discussed."

What do you do when "old debates" about a President's deliberate (political) intent to lie our nation into war, risking hundreds of thousands of precious lives, which was something we'd suspected he was doing all along, are confirmed by an official set of documents, leaked straight from the British government?

What if you'd suspected that someone had deliberately poisoned your family dog and, two years down the line, you received official evidence of the intentional killing? Would you simply say, "Aw, heck - that was something we'd discussed a long time ago" and forget about asking any more questions or seeking justice and/or reparation?

Come on, people. I don't think so.

There are some very lame defenses coming from the lips of Scott McLellan. The White House must be terribly worried about this Downing Street memo leak.

As a citizen stated in a letter to the St. Petersburg Times' editor recently,

"1,700 dead U.S. soldiers and 100,000-plus dead Iraqis, and [the Iraq war's] $300-billion price tag, was based on fabrications and plain old-fashioned lies."

..and another citizen writes:

"Years from now when our children and their children ask us what we did when we discovered that all the killing, maiming and destruction done in our names was based on faulty information, what will we say?"

Scott McLellan and the White House would tell you to tell your children it was just an old debate and that it never deserved to be revisited. I find no honor in that type of argument. How about you?


Story Linked at Common Ills

Fixed Means Just What You'd Think It Means

Fixed Means Just What You'd Think It Means

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey told MSNBC's Hardball host David Gregory that "fixed," the word used in the Downing Street memo, does not mean "cooking the books." Woolsey's defense is "British usage" of the word "fixed." Yet, British sources have confirmed the meaning of "fixed" and it isn't any different than the good old American definition. In the Downing Street memo, no matter how Bush-defenders slice and dice it, the word "fixed" envelops the scope of deliberate political manipulation...moving the masses toward a war they knew they were going to wage - a war that would be inevitable because, in the words of one of the British documents:

"In practice, much of the international community would find it difficult to stand in the way of the determined course of the US hegemon."

Woolsey told Hardball that he doesn't think there is really any basis for the allegation that "fixed" means "fixed", in the sense which we all understand the word. The contents of the documents prove his ridiculous claim as wrong. Media Matters provides a list of sources with information that directly refutes Woolsey's shallow defense.





This blogpost made 'Top Story' at Findory.com

Jay Rosen on Media and Downing Street Memo Story

Jay Rosen on Media and Downing Street Memo Story

Press Think's Jay Rosen speaks at the Huffington Post about the Downing Street memo story. He reiterates (and relates to the DSM story) what he has said in the recent past - that the traditional press is "no longer sovereign over territory it once easily controlled." Rosen says:

"Now if there's something newsworthy coming out of the U.K. but neglected in America the political blogs in America and other activists online keep talking about it. Quickly the story's unjust obscurity will reach a political player who can change that by acting in a newsworthy way, lending fresh facts and additional reason to cover the story.

By such means the appeal of news judgment starts to take shape."

Crazy Americans

Crazy Americans

Oh! How cute! Saddam likes Doritos...and he hates Fruit Loops!

Now let's kill him!

Good.

Good.

I didn't say "Impeachment"-the Washington Post did!

I didn't say "Impeachment"-the Washington Post did!

"If Karl Rove – that is, politics... drove Iraq policy, then President Bush would merit not only defeat, but impeachment."

- Fred Hiatt, Washington Post, January 26th, 2004

See "An Open Letter to Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post" by John Atcheson (at Truthout.org)

Atcheson says:

"It’s too late for defeat, but with the release of the Downing Street Memo and other internal British documents made available to the Post as reported on Sunday June 12, 2005, the evidence that the war was politically motivated and that the administration used deceptions, distortions and outright lies to justify it, is now overwhelming. By your own assessment, it is time for impeachment proceedings to begin....

.....It’s time, Washington Post. We all make mistakes. And it’s very hard to admit them. Particularly when papers in the Knight-Ridder chain and the Guardian got it right all along, while you and your editorial page clung to increasingly transparent lies."

John Edwards Speaks About Howard Dean in Wisconsin

John Edwards Speaks About Howard Dean in Wisconsin

"Howard Dean and I, and Dave (Obey), all of us are fighting for the same thing. We're fighting to give regular, decent Americans a fair chance. We're trying to stop the extraordinary damage that is being done to this country by George Bush each day. All of us may not use the same words, but we are completely united in that cause. The media needs to report the "thrust" of a message rather than picking sound bites. What most people care about is not discussion between politicians but what we can do to make their lives better."

-From WisPolitics - Edwards Tells Wausau Dems to Keep the Faith

_______________

Other Edwards-in-Wisconisn news:

The following are the results of a recent Democratic straw poll held in Wisconsin:

Which politician would be your preferred Democratic presidential candidate in 2008?

Total votes: 299

Russ Feingold: 116 votes (38.8 percent)
Hillary Rodham Clinton: 59 votes (19.7 percent)
John Edwards: 32 votes (10.7 percent)
Bill Richardson: 27 votes (9 percent)
Evan Bayh: 20 votes (6.7 percent)
Mark Warner: 12 votes (4 percent)
John Kerry: 5 votes (1.7 percent)
Ed Rendell: 3 votes (1 percent)
Tom Vilsack: 3 votes (1 percent)

WisPolitics President Jeff Mayers interviewed John Edwards on June 12 via telephone. You can read the interview here. Edwards was visiting Wisconsin in support for Congressman Dave Obey. Edwards spoke about his willing assistance to grassroots political activists and he calls upon us to stand by our core set of convictions:

"We need to build this party, strengthen this party from the ground up, not from Washington, D.C. down. Which means helping recruit good, local candidates. Making sure we have a good, strong grassroots organization so that we have the foundation that we need. And in terms of what it is we say, and making it clear to the country what it is we believe, I think we ought to fight for our core set of convictions. I don’t think we should change what we believe. I don’t think we should change our positions, or nuance our positions. I think there’s strength in conviction. We should stand by our convictions."

Who D'You Think You're Fooling, W?

Who D'You Think You're Fooling, W?


Seen at Biomes Blog (Thanks, Mark).

Oh, well - at least George W. is thinking a lot more about Iraq lately - so says Wonkette.

Pol Pot or Pot Roast?

Pol Pot or Pot Roast?




"It's not Pol Pot at Gauntanamo -





It's Pot Roast!"

- Tom Price, Republican Congressman from Georgia, on the floor of the House today

Price was hyperbolically whining for an apology from Sen. Dick Durbin, while totally neglecting to lend honest intelligence to Durbin's call to ethics and honor, which Durbin strongly and clearly sent.


Price

I think my message above graphically matches Congressman Tom Price's whiny hyperbole.

No one should apologize for waking Americans up to the truth and the call to honor and decency.

____________________________


Statement of Jamal al-Harith, former detainee at Guantanamo Bay:

I was moved [to Camp Xray/Gauntanamo Bay] on or about 11 February 2002. Before take-off I was hooded and shackled. Mittens were placed on my hands and earphones over my ears. Chains were placed around my legs and my waist. Goggles were placed on my eyes and the straps on the goggles were so tight they cut into my ears. A medical patch was placed on my forehead which I believe contained a muscle relaxant.

On arrival at Guantanamo I was placed on a barge to get me to the main camp. Whilst on the barge, US military forces kicked, slapped, elbowed and punched me in the body and head and they said repeatedly “You are now property of the United States Marine Corps.”

I was taken to Camp X-Ray, the prison camp for detainees. My goggles and hood were removed but I was told I must keep my eyes closed and I was not allowed to speak or move. My clothes were stripped off. I was placed in a shower. My chains were released so I could wash.

I was later placed in a wire cage of about 2 metres by about 11/2 metres to 2 metres. During my imprisonment by the United States Forces, I was deprived of access to my friends and family. I was never allowed any legal advice and never informed of any specific allegations or charges against me. I was repeatedly questioned to try to make me confess to something I had not done.

During the time I was detained by United States Forces I was subjected to systematic abuse which I have been informed amounts to torture under international law. I was assaulted on a number of occasions. This included being punched, kicked and slapped. In addition, I was subjected to a procedure called “short shackling” in painful “stress positions” for many hours at a time. This caused deep flesh wounds which have left me with permanent scarring on my wrists and ankles.

On occasions, unmuzzled dogs would be brought to my wire cage and encouraged to bark in a ferocious and threatening way. I was intentionally subjected to extremes of heat and cold for most of my stay whilst in Guantanamo. For long periods of my detention in Guantanamo I was kept in a filthy cage for 24 hours per day with no proper sanitation and no regular access to cleaning material. I was denied access to necessary medical care.

I was harassed in practising my religion. I was deprived of adequate food. I was deprived of adequate drinkable water. I was also deprived of communication with my family and friends. Very powerful spotlights were kept on during the night-time period which made it hard to sleep properly.

On "Obstruction"

On "Obstruction"

Toxic waste and shit are being pumped, by a strong, unnatural force, through the sewer pipe.
If that waste and shit escape the pipe, the ocean will be poisoned and diseased.

So what do you do?

Wouldn't you do everything you could do in order to to stop the force behind the waste and shit?

(Even though you realize 'God' may blow the shit through the pipe while you're on recess?)

Skippy Speaks and Will Soon Be Three

Skippy Speaks and Will Soon Be Three


Par-tay!

Skippy The Bush Kangaroo is having a Blogiversary soon. It will be their third. Go and wish them a Happy 3rd - and hear Skippy, himself, on the radio.

Love ya, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo-ers.. Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

"We are talking here about creating the right political preconditions for moving populations toward a war, quite a different matter from not having decided on the war."

- -Tom Englehart, speaking about the page-11 David Sanger NYT piece ("Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made") that focused on the second of the Downing Street memos. Engelhart claimed that Sanger wrote as if reflecting a situation in which no "political decisions" had been made." Sanger employed no caveat or alternative possible explanation. Englehart feels that was a very bizarre way for Sanger to have showcased his piece.


See my own comments about Sanger's article at this June 13 post. I had given the article my "Most Misleading Headline of the Day" distinction.

The Memos Are Authentic

The Memos Are Authentic

At American Street, Hesiod has posted about confirmation of the authenticity of the Downing Street memos in a June 17th Newsweek article by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball.

The rightwing parlor trick isn't going to work as magically, this time, as it did when they sought Dan Rather's head.

Right Blogs Try to Turn Downing Street into A Rathergate

Right Blogs Try to Turn Downing Street into A Rathergate

Since I have a lot of content here, I wanted to point out this story which I wrote on Sunday morning.

Rush Limbaugh said something that I stated myself:

"...The Rathergate stuff, those memos are 20 years old written by a dead guy. I forget the name of the commanding officer at Bush's National Guard unit, but he's the guy that supposedly wrote them. These memos, the Downing Street memo, they're current. The people all involved are still alive and they haven't denied any of this and you would think they would if they were not true.."

Rush says he simply "isn't interested" in talking about the Downing Street memos. I don't blame him. He could create no spin that would work very well against the citizens who are concerned, especially the moms and dads who've lost kids in Iraq.

DSM: Texas Attorney Publically Demands Investigation

"As a citizen, taxpayer and voter, I believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government, representatives and commander in chief when representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war are made.

As a result, I have asked Congress to publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible."

- Channy Wood, an attorney in Amarillo, TX

DSM: Amarillo Attorney Publically Demands Investigation

The following is an opinion posted at Amarillo.com. LINK (registration required).

I write because of concern regarding The London Times' recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo, comprising the minutes of a meeting with 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, well before the invasion and before congressional authority to engage in military action was sought, 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, President George W. Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet a month later, Bush stated to the public that he was willing to llook at all optionsn and that there was "no timetable" for war. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld flatly stated that the president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq.

In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remain a serious and lingering question about the lead-up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a massive intelligence failure (in other words, a mistake) or the result of deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As a result of these concerns, I ask that Congress respond to the following questions:

- Do lawmakers dispute the accuracy of the Downing Street Memo?

- Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before congressional authorization to go to war was sought?

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

- At what point did Bush and Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?

- Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to lfixn the intelligence and facts around the policy of going to war with Iraq as the leaked document states?

As a citizen, taxpayer and voter, I believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government, representatives and commander in chief when representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war are made.

As a result, I have asked Congress to publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.

Nearly 2,000 American soldiers have given their lives in this war, and tens of thousands have served and been wounded, including men like Rob Winchester and Pat Tillman.

We must ensure that we do not ask the fighting men and women of this country to sacrifice their health, bodies and lives at the whim of the commander and chief.

These soldiers' lives are precious; the families they leave behind are precious. And the sacrifices they make deserve and honest response from our government.

I ask our Texas congressional delegation to join Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., in his effort to bring our troops home to their families.

Our troops and their families deserve that.

- Channy Wood

DSM Cartoons

credit: Pat Oliphant


credit: Walt Handelsman


credit:Toles