Downing Street Memo hearings today

Thursday, 12:48 pm

By Kate

Jun

16

2005

Rep John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee and other members of Congress are conducting a hearing now on the Downing Street Memo and subsequently released and related documents, investigating White House efforts to fix ‘facts’ to justify their decision to go to war with Iraq. The hearing is televised live on CSPAN3 (2:30PM—also can be heard on CSPAN’s website). This could be quite interesting. Former Ambassador Joe Wilson will testify along with 27 year CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, and Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey died in Iraq, and constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz.

Following the hearing, Rep. John Conyers will deliver a letter to the White House, addressed to President Bush, containing the signatures of over 90 members of Congress and over 500,000 signatures of every day people like you and me (my signature is included). The letter requests that the President answer questions that have been raised by the Downing Street Memo.

It’s interesting. Today I heard a couple of journalists on NPR talking about the hearings and acknowledging that they have been talking amongst themselves, admitting that they have been wrong in ignoring the memo. I almost fell off my chair. But they’re paying attention now.

Better late than never. I hope this hearing does some good. And I hope the media run with it. The war in Iraq was started on false and trumped up information. That is illegal, unethical, and unforgivable.

But standard operating procedure for the neocons in charge.