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Old 11-06-05, 11:41 PM   #41
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I'll be waiting. We'll see if the "secrets" these rags are publishing actually lead anywhere.
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Old 12-06-05, 01:03 AM   #42
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I don't know how well the Bush administration managed to spin its domestic media and consequently the perception of American audiences - maybe some Americans are genuinely surprised of what the memo has revealed. For European audiences there's hardly anything surprising - this is precisely how things looked to Europeans (despite their political standing) already months before the war: Bush was hell bent to go to war and would find any excuses to do so, and Blair was following him like an obedient poodle. It would of course be nice if the leaders of important western democracies would not lie blatantly to their citizens to excuse wars that will inevitably cause lot of death and destruction but I suppose most people don't simply expect such moral integrity from politicians these days.

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Old 12-06-05, 06:44 AM   #43
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazer
I'll be waiting. We'll see if the "secrets" these rags are publishing actually lead anywhere.
Without Dan Rather promoting them, they just don't reach enough dumb, gullible people anymore.
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Old 12-06-05, 07:00 AM   #44
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TankGirl
I don't know how well the Bush administration managed to spin its domestic media and consequently the perception of American audiences - maybe some Americans are genuinely surprised of what the memo has revealed. For European audiences there's hardly anything surprising - this is precisely how things looked to Europeans (despite their political standing) already months before the war: Bush was hell bent to go to war and would find any excuses to do so, and Blair was following him like an obedient poodle. It would of course be nice if the leaders of important western democracies would not lie blatantly to their citizens to excuse wars that will inevitably cause lot of death and destruction but I suppose most people don't simply expect such moral integrity from politicians these days.

- tg
the documents coming out now confirm what most people already suspected. but taken as part of a larger picture, combined with the testimony of people like Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, and Ambassador Joeseph Wilson, they demonstrate a pattern of manipulation and deception on the part of the administration. this has been rising up to the surface of the public consciousness as the public looks at the mess we have created in Iraq, looks at the rising death toll (25 more soldiers died this week), look at the bleak future there, and righteously asks "how did we get into this?"

since it has become painfully obvious we were misled into the war, we were and continue to be lied to about the decision to go to war, and we were completely unprepared for the consequences of this decision, it is just possible the US public has had enough.
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Old 12-06-05, 09:59 AM   #45
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Quote:
Originally Posted by theknife
it is just possible the US public has had enough.
If this singular piece of damning evidence is all it takes to convince the public, then you're right. As I said, I'm still curious to see what will happen and at this point I won't make any predictions.
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Old 12-06-05, 08:15 PM   #46
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Originally Posted by Mazer
If this singular piece of damning evidence is all it takes to convince the public, then you're right. As I said, I'm still curious to see what will happen and at this point I won't make any predictions.
deep down inside, i think the public knows that the president has lied to them. whether the public wants to confront this particular demon is the question.

as for that singular piece of damning evidence, i'm not sure which you are referring to - there are so many. there is, of course, the Downing St. Minutes. then there is the document published in today's London Times (published by Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, for you fans of the liberal media myth):

Quote:
The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it.
then there is the testimony of Richard Clarke:

Quote:
After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.
or Paul O'Neil:

Quote:
According to O'Neil, it was at the very first National Security Council meeting that the Bush administration expressed a desire to remove Saddam Hussein from office.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neil, who adds that going after Saddam was a high priority 10 days after the inauguration -- eight months before Sept. 11.
or the President's own words, dated March 2002:

Quote:
Two months ago, a group of Republican and Democratic Senators went to the White House to meet with Condoleezza Rice, the President's National Security Adviser. Bush was not scheduled to attend but poked his head in anyway — and soon turned the discussion to Iraq. The President has strong feelings about Saddam Hussein (you might too if the man had tried to assassinate your father, which Saddam attempted to do when former President George Bush visited Kuwait in 1993) and did not try to hide them. He showed little interest in debating what to do about Saddam. Instead, he became notably animated, according to one person in the room, used a vulgar epithet to refer to Saddam and concluded with four words that left no one in doubt about Bush's intentions: "We're taking him out."
or how about Cheneys words, also from March 2002?

Quote:
Dick Cheney carried the same message to Capitol Hill in late March. The Vice President dropped by a Senate Republican policy lunch soon after his 10-day tour of the Middle East — the one meant to drum up support for a U.S. military strike against Iraq. Before he spoke, he said no one should repeat what he said, and Senators and staff members promptly put down their pens and pencils. Then he gave them some surprising news. The question was no longer if the U.S. would attack Iraq, he said. The only question was when.
...and there is so much more. Hearings start next week - let's see if Michigan Congressman John Conyers is smart enough to put together all of the pieces.
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Old 14-06-05, 04:49 PM   #48
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why the Downing Street Minutes matter
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Old 14-06-05, 05:10 PM   #49
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Eh, Real Player required so I can't watch it. Can you summarize?

Google proves nothing, except that people who hate Bush like to post their gripes online.
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Old 14-06-05, 06:31 PM   #50
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazer
Eh, Real Player required so I can't watch it. Can you summarize?

Google proves nothing, except that people who hate Bush like to post their gripes online.
it's a well-edited little piece of spin, but it has some interesting points and quotes...

incidentally, this is a nice Real Player Alternative - handy to have for the occasional .rm file you run across.
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Old 15-06-05, 05:05 AM   #51
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Default the path to war

a timeline
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Old 15-06-05, 03:58 PM   #52
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from today's papers...

Baltimore Sun

Quote:
Damning evidence can't be ignored

By David Swanson and Jonathan Schwarz
Originally published June 15, 2005

SINCE ITS publication May 1 by The Sunday Times of London, the so-called Downing Street memo has dominated the media in Britain and on the Internet in the United States. The memo is the official minutes from a secret meeting about Iraq held by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his inner circle July 23, 2002.

The significance of the memo - and additional leaked British documents now surfacing in public view - can hardly be overstated. They conceivably could lead to impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

The Bush administration consistently has made two claims regarding its decision to invade Iraq:

Mr. Bush chose war only as a last resort.

Mr. Bush dealt honestly with intelligence about weapons of mass destruction and alleged Iraqi ties to al-Qaida.

The Downing Street memo contradicts these claims.
Mineapolis Star-Tribune

Quote:
Many Bush critics accused him of "using" the United Nations to justify war, rather than truly working to avoid military conflict. But they were naturally suspect because they oppose U.S. policy. The British briefing paper is especially significant because it comes from a government that is not only astute, but is also quite friendly to Bush's objective of invading Iraq. The unavoidable conclusion is that both British and American citizens were duped into hoping that the United Nations would make such a conflict unnecessary. In fact, Britain eagerly and the United States reluctantly went to the United Nations to get a fig leaf of respectability for a war on which they had already decided.

In the end, the Security Council refused to play its role, arguing that the weapons inspectors needed more time (actually ample time) to complete their mission. Then the United States threw up its hands, branded Security Council members a bunch of hand-wringing pansies, and went to war. As the British briefing paper makes clear, that was pre-ordained.
LA Times

Quote:
LONDON — In March 2002, the Bush administration had just begun to publicly raise the possibility of confronting Iraq. But behind the scenes, officials already were deeply engaged in seeking ways to justify an invasion, newly revealed British memos indicate.

Foreshadowing developments in the year before the war started, British officials emphasized the importance of U.N. diplomacy, which they said might force Saddam Hussein into a misstep. They also suggested that confronting the Iraqi leader be cast as an effort to prevent him from using weapons of mass destruction or giving them to terrorists.

The documents help flesh out the background to the formerly top-secret "Downing Street memo" published in the Sunday Times of London last month, which said that top British officials were told eight months before the war began that military action was "seen as inevitable." President Bush and his main ally in the war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have long maintained that they had not made up their minds to go to war at that stage.

"Nothing could be farther from the truth," Bush said last week, responding to a question about the July 23, 2002, memo. "Both of us didn't want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."
...and so forth. but all of this fuss is still not likely to amount to anything if it's based solely on the British version of events, (even in spite of mountains of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence supporting it). nope, it's gonna take an American to make all this start to stick to the prez....somebody with insider documentation. perhaps another Deep Throat.

hearings start tomorrow (6/16) at 2:30 pm est - watch it on C-Span 3 or here.
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Old 15-06-05, 07:54 PM   #53
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the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step - a Republican lawmaker breaks the code of silence:
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Old 17-06-05, 05:15 PM   #54
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Bob Woodward, on 60 Minutes

Quote:
"And there's this low boil on Iraq until the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 21, 2001. This is 72 days after 9/11. This is part of this secret history. President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically, and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, 'What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.'"

Woodward says immediately after that, Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to develop a war plan to invade Iraq and remove Saddam - and that Rumsfeld gave Franks a blank check.

"Rumsfeld and Franks work out a deal essentially where Franks can spend any money he needs. And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the preparations in Kuwait, specifically to make war possible," says Woodward.

"Gets to a point where in July, the end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ...Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this."
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Old 17-06-05, 06:54 PM   #55
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Wait, you're saying the President walked into the Treasury and stole $700 million dollars and nobody noticed or tried to stop him? We need more details on this caper. When did it happen and who found out about it? How could Congress allow this? I mean, weren't there security cameras and guards?
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Old 18-06-05, 06:06 AM   #56
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazer
Wait, you're saying the President walked into the Treasury and stole $700 million dollars and nobody noticed or tried to stop him? We need more details on this caper. When did it happen and who found out about it? How could Congress allow this? I mean, weren't there security cameras and guards?
like this:

Bush's Legal Obligation to Tell Congress About $700M for Iraq

April 21, 2004

Since Bob Woodward disclosed that President Bush in July of 2002 diverted $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress, the Bush Administration has failed to provide one shred of evidence to rebuff the charge. According to Woodward, Bush kept Congress "totally in the dark on this" leaving lawmakers with "no real knowledge or involvement." Not only does the Constitution vest the power of the purse with Congress, but whichever of the two supplemental bills passed between 9/11 and July 2001 the President drew the money from had explicit language obligating him to inform key congressional leaders.Unfortunately, instead of opening an investigation, White House allies on Capitol Hill actually told USA Today that the move was acceptable because "the $700 million was small compared" with the overall spending bills.

IF THE WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS TO HAVE USED THE POST-9/11 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL...

BUSH REQUIRED TO TELL CONGRESS, EVEN IF HE USED THE 9/11 SUPPLEMENTAL: While the President was given discretion to direct $10 billion of the post-9/11 Emergency Supplemental bill, the legislation specifically obligated the President to "consult with the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committees on Appropriations prior to the transfer" of any funds. In other words, the President was obligated to tell key congressional leaders of both parties anytime he moved money. [Source: Text of HR 2888, Post-9/11 Emergency Appropriations, 9/14/01]

BUSH DELIBERATELY USED VAGUE LANGUAGE IN DOCUMENTS TO HIDE SECRET MOVE: The White House issued two legally mandated updates to Congress about where supplemental funds were being spent. Both covered portions of the time Bush made his $700 million order. But in these documents, instead of telling Congress money was going to Iraq, the White House deliberately used vague and evasive language. For instance, in both of its updates to the Appropriations Committee, the Administration only said it had used monies for "increased situational awareness" and "increased worldwide posture" – and did not mention Iraq at all. [Source: OMB Notification, 8/9/02 & 10/17/02]

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS CHAIRMAN SAYS WHITE HOUSE NEVER NOTIFIED HIS COMMITTEE: Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), then-Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee which should have received notification, issued a statement on 4/20/04 saying "the Bush White House provided no consultations as required by law about its use of funds for preparation for a war in Iraq in advance of those funds being spent." [Source: Byrd Statement, 4/20/04]

BUSH SAID 9/11 BILL FOR NEW YORK AND CURRENT MILITARY OPERATIONS – NOT IRAQ: In his speech to Congress after 9/11, President Bush promised to use the Emergency Supplemental Bill specifically for aid to New York and for military operations against the terrorists who struck America. He said he would use the "$40 billion to rebuild our communities and meet the needs of our military." He said nothing about Iraq. [Source: President Bush, 9/19/01]

IF THE WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS TO HAVE USED THE JULY 2002 SUPPLEMENTAL...

BILL REQUIRED BUSH TO TELL CONGRESS BEFORE MOVING FUNDS: According to the text of the August 2002 Supplemental, the Bush Administration was only permitted to transfer "up to $275 million" of previously appropriated funds within the Pentagon, and only "15 days after notification to the congressional defense committees." In other words, the White House was obligated to tell Congress if money was moved. [Source: Supplemental Bill, 8/2/02]

BILL REQUIRED BUSH TO TELL CONGRESS IF FUNDS GIVEN TO FRONTLINE STATES: According to the text of the August 2002 Supplemental, the President was allowed to use $390 million for aid to countries assisting with the Global War on Terror. However, that money could only be spent only after "15 days following notification to the appropriate Congressional committees." [Source: Supplemental Bill, HR 4775, 8/2/02]

UNABLE TO PRODUCE ANY EVIDENCE THEY EVEN MENTIONED IRAQ TO CONGRESS: The Administration has yet to produce one reprogramming or transfer notice to Congress about the supplemental which mentioned Iraq. White House spokesman Scott McClellan "added that the White House had asked the Pentagon comptroller and OMB to document what had happened" but there has still been no evidence. [Source: LA Times, 4/20/04]

THE SUMMER SUPPLEMENTAL WAS SIGNED AFTER SECRET ORDER WAS MADE: According to Woodward, the order for the $700 million was given in July of 2002. The White House would have trouble arguing it took the secret $700 million out of the summer 2002 supplemental, considering the bill wasn't signed into law until August 2. [Source: Congressional Record, 8/02]
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Old 18-06-05, 06:16 AM   #57
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I wonder if the President was a Democrat,
would this have been sorted out by now?
How do they get away with this sort of thing?
Bearing in mind it's all like it reads.
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Old 18-06-05, 10:24 PM   #58
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Default "the White House is completely disconnected from reality"

Quote:
Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
this is coming from a Republican Senator. however, the White House is going on the offensive:
Quote:
Still, the Bush administration is planning to hit back, starting this week, with a renewed public-relations push by the president.
apparently, as far as the White House is concerned, the war we are are losing in Iraq is not a military problem or a political problem. it's a public relations problem and all will be well if they can just convince us all is well.

the DSM hearing set a small fire last week under the administration's credibility
and as we head into next news cycle, it appears to be still burning.

Quote:
But Congress's patience could wear very thin going into an election year. "If things don't start to turn around in six months, then it may be too late," says Hagel. "I think it's that serious."
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Old 19-06-05, 07:33 AM   #59
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Default yet another leakled memo....

apparently, the US and the UK actually started the war in May 2002, with massive air raids on Iraqi facilities. while UN mandates allowed patrolling and enforcement of the Iraqi no-fly zone, this increased air activity was in fact illegal and the Brits knew it:

Quote:
A SHARP increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war “to put pressure on the regime” was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.

The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began “spikes of activity” designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.

The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was “not consistent with” UN law, despite American claims that it was.
so, while Congress did not authorize military action until October 2002, Bush had already started the war on his own:

Quote:
General Tommy Franks, the allied commander, recalled in his autobiography, American Soldier, that during this meeting he rejected a call from Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to cut the bombing patrols because he wanted to use them to make Iraq’s defences “as weak as possible”.

The allied commander specifically used the term “spikes of activity” in his book. The upgrade to a full air war was also illegal, said Goodhart. “If, as Franks seems to suggest, the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority,” he said.

Although the legality of the war has been more of an issue in Britain than in America, the revelations indicate Bush may also have acted illegally, since Congress did not authorise military action until October 11 2002.

The air war had already begun six weeks earlier and the spikes of activity had been underway for five months.
these new memos from the British government, as published in the London Times today, add a new dimension to the previously disclosed DSM information: in addition to fixing intelligence to sell and support a predetermination to attack Iraq, the administration was already illegally attacking Iraq without any authorization from Congress.

edit: a succinct editorial (one of dozens from around the country today) from today's SF Chronicle:

Quote:
It's bad enough that the Bush administration had so little international support for the Iraqi war that its "coalition of the willing" meant the United States, Britain, and the equivalent of a child's imaginary friends.

It's even worse that, as the British Downing Street memo confirms, the administration had so little evidence of real threats that officials knew from the start that they were going to have to manufacture excuses to go to war. What's more damning still is that they effectively began this war even before the congressional vote.
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Old 25-06-05, 08:23 AM   #60
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Default upping the ante

Democrat Senators starting to show some spine:


Quote:
June 22, 2005
The Honorable Pat Roberts, Chairman
The Honorable John D. Rockefeller, IV, Vice Chairman
United States Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence
SH-211
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Roberts and Senator Rockefeller:

We write concerning your committee's vital examination of pre-war Iraq intelligence failures. In particular, we urge you to accelerate to completion the work of the so-called "Phase II" effort to assess how policy makers used the intelligence they received.

Last year your committee completed the first phase of a two-phased effort to review the pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Phase I-begun in the summer of 2003 and completed in the summer of 2004-examined the performance of the American intelligence community in the collection and analysis of intelligence prior to the war, including an examination of the quantity and quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence on ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorist groups.. At the conclusion of Phase I, your committee issued an unclassified report that made an important contribution to the American public's understanding of the issues involved.

In February 2004-well over a year ago-the committee agreed to expand the scope of inquiry to include a second phase which would examine the use of intelligence by policy makers, the comparison of pre-war assessments and post-war findings, the activities of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and the Office of Special Plans in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and the use of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress.

The committee's efforts have taken on renewed urgency given recent revelations in the United Kingdom regarding the apparent minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior national security advisors. These minutes-known as the "Downing Street Memo"-raise troubling questions about the use of intelligence by American policy makers-questions that your committee is uniquely situated to address.

The memo indicates that in the summer of 2002, at a time the White House was promising Congress and the American people that war would be their last resort, that they believed military action against Iraq was "inevitable."

The minutes reveal that President "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."

The American people took the warnings that the administration sounded seriously-warnings that were echoed at the United Nations and here in Congress as we voted to give the president the authority to go to war. For the sake of our democracy and our future national security, the public must know whether such warnings were driven by facts and responsible intelligence, or by political calculation.

These issues need to be addressed with urgency. This remains a dangerous world, with American forces engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other challenges looming in Iran and North Korea. In this environment, the American public should have the highest confidence that policy makers are using intelligence objectively-never manipulating it to justify war, but always to protect the United States. The contents of the Downing Street Memo undermine this faith and only rigorous Congressional oversight can determine the truth.

We urge the committee to complete the second phase of its investigation with the maximum speed and transparency possible, producing, as it did at the end of Phase I, a comprehensive, unclassified report from which the American people can benefit directly.
These are the signatories: Senators Johnson, Corzine, Reed, Lautenberg, Boxer, Kennedy, Harkin, Bingaman, and Durbin.
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