Just the facts, ma'am --- but in a timely fashion!

It is sad that we, the people of this great nation, are so controlled by the media and government officials. Both are supposed to work on our behalf. This memo, and the time it has taken for the media to cover the story, pretty clearly demonstrate that neither is on our side, We deserve full explanations from the President and, minimally, the major TV networks.

Please visit: http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/.

The site provides much more detail about the memo than that which I've excerpted below.

THANKS!!


Today is June 9, 2005
35 days since Congressional request for an investigation.

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	The Downing Street "Memo" is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The Times of London printed the text of this document on Sunday, May 1, 2005, but to date US media coverage has been limited. This site is intended to act as a resource for anyone who wants to understand the facts revealed in this document. The contents of the memo are shocking. The minutes detail how our government did not believe Iraq was a greater threat than other nations; how intelligence was "fixed around" to sell the case for war to the American public; and how the Bush Administration’s public assurances of "war as a last resort" were at odds with their privately stated intentions. When asked, British officials "did not dispute the document's authenticity." and a senior American official has described it as "absolutely accurate." Yet the Bush administration continues to simultaneously sidestep the issue while attempting to cast doubt on the memo’s authenticity.
			Congressman John Conyers is calling on American citizens to sign on to a letter to the President that demands a response to questions originally posed by Conyers and 88 other members of Congress in a similar letter dated May 5, 2005. Conyers has committed to personally delivering the letter to the White House when it garners 100,000 250,000 500,000 citizen signatures. Let's help him get there. Follow this link to sign. Current count
	Nobody wants to go to war. We trust our leaders to shed blood in our name only when absolutely necessary. But the facts revealed by the Downing Street Memo force us to ask ourselves: Was I misled? Did President Bush tell me the truth when he said he would not take us to war unless absolutely necessary? More than two years after the start of the Iraq War, Americans are just learning that our government was dead set on invasion, even while it claimed to be pursuing diplomacy. Please join us in demanding that we get to the bottom of this issue. www.downingstreetmemo.com was created by concerned citizens seeking truth and transparency from their government. We do not represent and are not supported by any particular organization or political party. The new DowningStreetMemo.com blog (temporary home!) www.downingstreetmemo.com was created by concerned citizens seeking truth and transparency from their government. We do not represent and are not supported by any particular organization or political party. 6/17/05 Update The story did hit locally, but only in a Letter to the Editor: Monday, June 13, 2005 Letter: Document suggests Iraq was no threat There hasn't been much attention on this side of the Atlantic to a May 1 report in the London Times newspaper http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ article/0,,2087-1592724,00.html. The article describes a secret meeting eight months before the Iraq invasion, showing more clearly than ever that the United States was just looking for an excuse to start a war in Iraq, not responding to a genuine threat. Documents summarizing the secret meeting made clear that there was no legal basis for war. The British knew the evidence linking Saddam to 9/11 was flimsy or non-existent. The top British intelligence officer warned the meeting that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It's been said that truth is the first casualty of war. We now know the Iraq war was started not because of intelligence failures, but because George Bush wanted war in Iraq. We now know we should have been skeptical of the reasons originally given. So we should be skeptical now of claims of progress and intentions of fostering democracy. HILTON BAXTER BINGHAMTON ^^ © 2005 Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin