[Vision2020] 500, 000 Citizens Call Bush out:Major Action In DC Tomorrow Re:Downing St. Memo

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

All:

More "Wow."

Bernie Ward (M-F 10 PM-1 AM on KGO) was all over this story tonight on KGO AM 
810 from San Francisco, which usually comes in clearly here in Idaho most 
nights after sundown, even with an "average" AM radio, aimed toward the Bay area. 
 

So I hit the Internet for more info.  Bernie said that Washington Journal on 
C-Span will have some info on this Downing St. memo DC action tomorrow 
morning.

Check the info below from the Institute For Public Accuracy regarding the 
Downing St. memo action in DC tomorrow.  Notice that Joe Wilson is on call, the 
same Joe Wilson who went to Niger to explore the claim that Iraq had obtained 
"yellow cake" uranium, which he found to be false.  This is the same Joe Wilson 
whose wife, Valerie Plame, was later "outed" regarding her undercover work as 
a CIA operative, some think as revenge or a warning to Wilson or others who 
challenge the Bush administration agenda.  The investigation into who outed 
Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative (a monster no-no), as far as I 
know to date, has never been publicly revealed, nor has any action been taken 
against the offender.  Read more info on Plame's outing at the web link below, 
then below that is the Institute For Public Accuracy info on tomorrow's DC 
Downing St. memo action:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26186-2004Sep16.html

----------------------------------------

Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa at accuracy.org
___________________________________________________             

        PM Wednesday, June 15, 2005

        Downing Street Memo: Deception and Cover-Up

On Thursday June 16, 2005, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Room HC-9 of the 
U.S.
Capitol, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary
Committee, and other members of Congress will hold a hearing on the Downing
Street Minutes and related evidence of White House efforts to cook the books 
on
pre-war intelligence.
    
Later on the same day at 5:00 p.m. ET in Lafayette Square Park, in front of 
the
White House, Congressman Conyers will deliver to the White House a letter
addressed to President Bush and signed by over 500,000 Americans and over 90
members of Congress. The letter asks the President to respond to questions
raised by the Downing Street Minutes.

Among those speaking at the hearings will be: Joe Wilson, former U.S. 
ambassador
and WMD expert; Ray McGovern, 27-year CIA analyst who prepared regular
presidential briefings during the Reagan administration; Cindy Sheehan, 
mother
of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq; and John Bonifaz, co-founder of
AfterDowningStreet.org.

The following are available for interviews:

JOHN BONIFAZ, DAVID SWANSON, david at davidswanson.org,
http://www.AfterDowningStreet.org
     Bonifaz and Swanson are two of the co-founders of the
AfterDowningStreet.org coalition which is urging Congress to begin a formal
investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses 
in
connection with the Iraq war. The Downing Street Memo consists of minutes of 
a
meeting with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top foreign policy
advisors in July 2002 before the U.S. Congressional and UN votes on Iraq. The
minutes state that: "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." [Video on the controversy is
available at: [http://hijackingcatastrophe.org/downingstreet>.]

WILLIAM CHRISTISON, bill at christison-santafe.com,
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison02082003.html
RAY McGOVERN, mcgovern at slschool.org,
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/15/1345223
     Available for a limited number of interviews, McGovern was a 27-year 
career
analyst with the CIA. The Washington Post in its lead editorial today writes:
"The memos add not a single fact to what was previously known about the
administration's prewar deliberations. Not only that: They add nothing to 
what
was publicly known in July 2002."
     McGovern said today: "If the editors of The Washington Post knew that as 
of
July, 2002, the President had, in the words of the Downing Street Memo,
'inevitably' decided on war, if they knew that the president intended to use 
as
justification the conjunction between terrorism and so-called weapons of mass
destruction, and if they knew that the intelligence and facts were being 
'fixed'
around the policy, then why didn't they say that clearly at the time?" 
     Former director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis,
Christison said today: "The Downing Street Memo shows that war was not a last
resort as the administration continues to claim, but a first resort. While 
many
of us came to that assessment before the invasion, the Memo fits in with 
other
things we have found out since the invasion -- like revelations by former
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil that Bush and others wanted to go after Iraq 
from
the start."
     As members of the steering committee for Veteran Intelligence 
Professionals
for Sanity, McGovern and Christison were among the authors of the article
"Cooking Intelligence for War"
[<http://www.counterpunch.org/vips03152003.html>], which appeared just before
the invasion of Iraq.

JOSEPH WILSON, joewilson at jcwilsoninternationalventures.com,
http://www.politicsoftruth.com
     Wilson is author of the book "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies 
that
Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity." He also wrote the New York
Times op-ed in July 2003 titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa," in which he
stated: "The question now is how that answer [the finding that Iraq did not
obtain uranium from Niger] was or was not used by our political leadership. 
If
my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very
interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it 
did
not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be
made that we went to war under false pretenses."
     Wilson said today: "My question appears to have been answered by the
Downing Street Memo: The administration was fixing the facts to fit the 
policy
it wanted. It's incorrect for anyone to state that this is old news since we
supposedly all knew that Bush wanted war under any circumstances. Until the 
2004
election a majority of Americans mistakenly thought we found weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq."

CINDY SHEEHAN, scindy121 at aol.com, http://www.gsfp.org
     Sheehan is co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace. Her son Casey was
killed in Iraq. She said today: "Members of Congress -- whether they are
Democrats or Republicans -- should do the right thing. They have a
Constitutional duty to investigate the facts surrounding the Downing Street
Memo. They didn't ask my son if he was a Democrat or Republican when he 
joined
the military. These are life and death questions and should be treated that
way."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

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V2020 Post by Ted Moffett
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