Below is an explanation and a link to sign a petition to ask Congress to
Censure president bush for knowingly leading the US into war under false
pretenses.
If you are a conservative who feels like s/he is a decent person this is
a chance to make your values count.
Read the facts.
No offense
Soapy
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During the buildup to war, President Bush said the United States "must
not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of
peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that
could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.... We have every reason to
assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from
occurring." 1
On the eve of sending troops into battle, Bush asserted that
"intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt
that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most
lethal weapons ever devised." 2
Now David Kay, the CIA’s chief weapons inspector, has testified before
Congress that these weapons do not exist.
In an attempt to evade responsibility for the misleading statements that
pushed the nation into war, Bush has announced plans to form an
independent inquiry to look into what went wrong. An inquiry would serve
the Bush administration well: it would envelop the issue in a fog of
uncertainty, deflect blame onto the intelligence services, and delay any
political damage until 2005, after the upcoming election. 3
But the facts need no clarification. Despite repeated warnings from the
CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, President Bush and his
administration hyped and distorted the threat that Iraq posed. 4 And now
that reality is setting in, the President wants to pin the blame on
someone else. We can't let him.
Congress has the power to censure the President -- to formally reprimand
him for betraying the nation's trust. If ever there was a time for this,
it's now. Join our call on Congress to censure President Bush at:
http://www.moveon.org/censure/
It's clear that we’ve been misled:
* David Kay said last week, "I'm personally convinced that there were
not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction," and
"We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you
would expect to find if the production was going on." 5 Kay said these
things shortly after resigning from his post as Bush's chief weapons
inspector in Iraq.
* Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union address, said, "the British
government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa." 6 Yet Ambassador Joe Wilson, who was
sent to Niger in February 2002 to determine whether Iraq was trying to
purchase uranium materials there, concluded that "intelligence related
to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi
threat." 7
* A CIA report in February 2003 said: "We do not have any direct
evidence that Iraq has used the period since [1998] to reconstitute its
Weapons of Mass Destruction programs." 8
It's also clear that the misleading was deliberate:
* The respected Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently
found that the administration "systematically misrepresented the threat"
from Iraq. 9
* The basis for President Bush's African uranium claim was known at the
time to be forged and not credible.10 "Top White House officials knew
that the CIA seriously disputed the claim that Saddam Hussein was
seeking uranium in Africa long before the claim was included in Bush's
January address to the nation," according to the Washington Post.11
* Secretary of State Colin Powell became alarmed at the level of
intelligence distortion. When he read the first draft of his speech to
the UN -- prepared for Powell by Vice President ***** Cheney's chief of
staff -- he was so upset that he lost his temper, throwing several pages
in the air and declaring, "I'm not reading this. This is bullsh--."12
Our democracy only works when we know the truth. We now know President
Bush and his administration deliberately misled Congress and the
American people. Censure is the least we should expect in response.
The independent inquiry will need a year or more to come to a
conclusion, according to the Bush administration. It took less time than
that for the country to go to war. We don't need more investigation, we
need accountability, and we need it now.
Join our call on Congress to censure President Bush at:
http://www.moveon.org/censure/
We'll be holding a press conference in Washington on Thursday,
announcing our campaign for Censure. If you sign on now, we can count
your signature at the press conference. Please sign on right away.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
- Adam, Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Laura, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn.org Team
Monday, February 9, 2004
Footnotes:
1. Washington Post, January 28, 2004
2. Official White House transcript, March 17, 2003
3. Washington Post, February 2, 2004
4. An excellent, comprehensive rundown on the Bush administration's
deliberate distortion of intelligence is available from the Center for
American Progress
5. New York Times, January 26, 2004
6. Official White House transcript, January 28, 2003
7. Joseph Wilson Op-Ed, New York Times, July 6, 2003
Note: Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, had her CIA cover blown, possibly by
the White House, in apparent retaliation for Wilson's contradicting the
White House's line on WMDs.
8. MSNBC News, Oct. 24, 2003
9. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report, "WMD in Iraq:
Evidence and Implications", January, 2004
10. New York Times, July 8, 2003
11. Washington Post News Service, July 23, 2003
12. US News & World Report, June 9, 2003
Note: This article with the Powell quote is available for purchase from
the US News & World Report archives for $2.95.
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