“Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., left, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, hand-delivers petitions to the White House to an unidentified White House aide, right, standing on the other side of the Northwest Appointment gate of the White House, Thursday, June 16, 2005 in Washington. The petitions are signed by 105 members of Congress and more than 540,000 Americans demanding that President Bush provide a detailed response to the evidence in the Downing Street memos of deceptions about the war in Iraq. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)”
Below, more stories + the Times UK on today’s meeting:
Check out Atrios’s “Opening Move”
Check out Raw Story
At long last, AP covers Downing (Raw Story)
McClellan: If You Opposed the War, You Don’t Count (Think Progress)
Times UK:
Congress discusses secret Downing St memos
By Jenny Booth, Times Online
Members of the US Congress were this afternoon hearing evidence about two secret Downing St memos written before the invasion of Iraq which seem to imply that President Bush systematically misled the American people.
The first of the two memos were leaked to the Sunday Times in May, but the potential scandal was ignored by the mainstream US media.
The memos were however forced onto the political agenda by bloggers, who have refused to let the scandal die down. Today their efforts were due to bear fruit, when anti-war Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee will hold an informal meeting to hear evidence on the top secret minutes as part of a hearing on intelligence issues before the Iraq war.
After the hearing, Congressman John Conyers Jr was due personally to deliver a letter to President Bush asking for answer about America’s path to war. The petition has been signed by over 100 members of Congress and half a million ordinary US citizens.
The letter is due to be followed by a public rally by anti-war campaigners in front of the White House.
“It’s the first time that the memo has been addressed in such a way on Capitol Hill,” said Roland Watson, Times Washington correspondent.
“It’s a further sign that the issue of the memo is finally picking up some momentum in Washington.”
The first memo is a transcript of a meeting head in Downing St in July 2002. In it, C, the head of MI6, says that based on meetings in Washington there had been a shift in attitude and that “military action was now seen as inevitable”. President Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, and would do so “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD”, it states.
The next line is the one that has excited opponents of the war. The memo continues: “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
SInce the memo was first published in the Sunday Times and on Times Online in May, it has remained among the most frequently read articles every day. Congressman Conyers has even set up a website for the memo, at www.downingstreetmemo.com, where the signatures for the petition have been gathered.
The second memo, referred to as DSMII, was published this week, saying that British ministers were told that they had no choice but to find a way to make the war in Iraq legal. The publication of the second document provoked the sceptical US press to take notice, and the story appeared on the front page of the respected Washington Post.
My pal Lisa Pease writes: On Friday 17, 8 PM EST/5PM PST, CSPAN-2 will re-air the Conyers’ meeting (which they streamed on the Internet-only CSPAN-3) on the Downing Street Memos.
Thanks for the update-I can’t wait to see it!
Actually they may be replaying it tomorrow but I just watched it on CSpan2. I called Cspan today and the gal that answered said they would replay tomorrow. I got very vocal and told her that this was history in the making and it would get lost in the Friday shuffle and then the American people would not hear this urgent and important hearing. She thanked me for calling. Maybe enough callers said the same thing. I was so emotionally touched by this hearing but then totally frustrated by the lack of coverage on the news.
Let our millions of voices become one. Let our hearts unite and do what is right for those that have senselessly sacrificed their lives for nothing. Let us honor those fallen heroes by bringing the rest of the troops home and impeaching the war criminals residing at 1600 pennsylvania Ave. Are you with me gang?
This picture captures a moment that I hope will be remembered as the beginning of the end.
Conyers is an amazing man.
Here’s the link:
Democrats call for inquiry into ‘Downing Street Memo’
They have a picture of Conyers accompanying the article.
This is it everyone. It’s out there now.
Check bbc’s coverage today – even before the Conyers-hearings:
Bloggers’ ‘victory’ over Iraq war memos
Congressmen probe Iraq war memo
WOW … just the headlines are exciting!
we’re battering this fucker home.
The BBC article accurately points out that we’re the only goddamn functioning outlet for the truth left in this country.
They WILL pay attention to this story or they’ll have to quit their ‘daily blog roundup’ reports entirely.
This is an excellent point!
O.
oh you just put one big grin on my face.
My God…kind of analogous to the guy standing in front of the tank at Tianneman Square? I don’t want to be too dramatic about this, but fuckin’ ay’!!!
Nah, I had the exact same image pass through my mind when Conyers mentioned the petitions during the hearing.
I cried then.
I’m crying now.
Also reminiscent of scenes in “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” about the Venezuelan coup against Chavez’s government. Particularly when the people surround the presidential palace demanding Chavez be returned to power.
What a stunning photo. The bars. The clenched fists being asked to recieve Truth.
My heart is full. Thanks to The Man.
The title of this diary is GREAT Susanhubo. I caught some of it on the news tonight. loved the protesters and Rep Conyers and Rep Waters. These people are true Patriots.
Woo Hoo!!!!!!
Once this thing get’s rollin’, I hope you all realize that every scandal that has rolled right off the Teflon Twit will be revisited. MMMM baby.
I am so damn proud that we were a part of this first step.
Thank God someone has taken up the mantle left vacant when Paul Wellstone died.
I think we’re going to need a couple more Wellstone’s before all is said and done, though.
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) is running the DSM/Conyers hearing story on its national TV news broadcast tonite.
FIAT JUSTITIA, RUAT COELUM. “Let justice be done though the heavens fall”–these words were powerfully invoked by Lord Mansfield in 1772 as he freed the slave whose fate was at issue in Sommersett’s case.
I am proud to say that my signature is one of the 250,000 on that petition. (I am a British citizen but also an American citizen.)
One person can make a difference. Representative Conyers is proving that. My signature, alone, would have fallen unnoticed. My signature, joined with 249,999 others, and transported by a courageous patriot to the gates of the imperial palace, has raised a cry againt the corruption of the Republic.
There are two issues that the Bush/Cheney people want to bury, because it frightens the daylights out of them (and it should): the issue of torture, ordered and orchestrated by President Cheney and Emperor George, and the issue of the lies peddled to the Congress and to the American public to mislead them into invading and occupying Iraq.
Representative Conyers has taken the proper course in attempting to keep these issues in the spotlight, as have Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. The truth is now only partially known; it is far, far worse than most people know.
I long predicted that memoranda would surface (unfortunately, I hoped it would be before the American and British elections, not after) that would expose the lies that Bush and Blair told.
But there are other memoranda, including ones that show that Bush and Cheney suborned perjury before the 9/11 Commission; that Cheney and Rumsfeld personally not only ordered a whitewash of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, but also ordered subordinates not to reveal all that they knew to Bush (yes, he is kept in the dark by Cheney about a number of things), and that the number of people being held without charge or trial, both inside the United States and outside its borders by its “allies” dwarfs the few thousand we know about.
The delivery of Conyers’ petition is but a small tremour in a potential earthquake; we have to keep focused on this issue. Do what small work you can in this endeavour; write a letter to editor of your local newspaper and demand coverage of it. Even if the story doesn’t appear in the paper, perhaps your letter will, and someone may read it.
Better yet, circulate a petition of your own. Get 10 or 100 or 1000 signatures on it and deliver it to your congressional representative, to your local newspaper, to whomever you feel may be influential in this matter, and DEMAND that people sit up and take notice.
Remember, there are three types of people….
And let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
“Democrats Urge Inquiry on Bush”
See link above: “At Long Last AP covers Downing”
Keep up the good work!
“Freedom is on the march”
An exhaustively compiled report meticulously documenting incidents of voter disenfranchisement would have been a footnote in the Bu’ush Party’s dustbin of history otherwise.
Conyers was instrumental in compiling incidents and corroborated statements into a report and naming the report in the record. These incidents were a result of election monitors in place to prevent the election larceny of 2000 from occurring again.
Who could imagine that the Repugs planned even more egregious election fraud in 2002 and 2004? (Well, most of us probably did, the difference being, we assumed that exposing this to the media would fling open the nailed-down shutters on the most opaque administration(s) in history.)
Unbelievable to hear the Emperor waving off 122 members of Congress and over half a million voters demanding that he answer questions about lying to Congress to go on a $300 billion dollar war of choice.
I just received my book today in the mail, “What went wrong in Ohio, The Conyers Report on the 2004 election”. I love that man.
Amazing, amazing. Isn’t he allowed in the building? The White House is public property.