Sunday, June 12, 2005
Sign Here, Please
Remember John Conyers, the Detroit Congressman who put together the letter to the White House demanding an explanation for the Downing Street Memo, got 88 fellow members of the House to sign it, and delivered it into the black hole of Bushland where it was never heard from again?For some reason that resounding silence failed to satisfy him, so he put together an entire website dedicated to getting to the bottom of this mess. And this time he's got a petition up attached to a new letter demanding action, only this time if Bush ignores it, he'll be ignoring half a million citizens who will have signed it. That's how many signatures Conyers wants, and he's pretty close: about 496,000 so far. Here's part of the text of the letter:
"As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:All right. If you haven't done it yet, get over there and do your civic duty.
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 to 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?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible."
