.. we here on the downingstreetmemo.com team are glued to our screens watching Rep. Conyers and company rock! A comprehensive report coming when the hearing is concluded.
Money quotes... Wilson: "We're having this discussion today because we didn't have it 3 years ago."
Now is the time top ask the question: "Is our presence in Iraq part of the solution or part of the problem?" Says he doesn't have the answer, but believes it's time for the question.
I am greatly indebted to your website for the information you have provided. It has changed my opinion of the war completely. Though I was never a wholehearted supporter of the war (Who in their right minds can be?), I used to be cautiously in favor, just because I thought the risk of ignoring the possibility that Saddam was developing WMD was too great. But as the suspicions about the war grew, the memo finally clinched it for me.
One piece of advice, though. Please, try to stay away from extremist leftist movements such as MoveOn.org etc. It will automatically cause you to lose any credibility you may have with conservatives and moderates. For the record, I am a moderate-conservative Christian and supported Bush in 2004. Now I believe he probably ought to be impeached.
McGovern: "I would like to publicly thank the patriotic whistleblowers who made these documents public."
Right now re-enacting Bush's sick stunt with looking under the table trying to make a joke about not finding WMD,s wit hte press laughing.
"I will tell you who is not laughing. Cindy [Sheehan, GSFP] is not laughing. [...] Cindy's son was killed 11 days after the President put on this show." [...] "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free - this is inscribed at CIA headquarters"
End of opening statements, Rep. Conyers begins the questioning.
McGovern answering Conyers question: "British lawyers were befuddled. Their PM had signed on for a war and now they were looking for a way to make it legal. "The best they could come up with was, 'lets propose to Saddam the kind of intrusive inspection regime that we know he'll reject,' and we'll have our causus belli."
A note... what I am publishing are comments taken down very quickly by me and others watching this in real-time... they may not be spot-on exact for that reason, there will be a transcript available later to see exact wording... thanks!
McGovern: US intelligence is in a shambles. Twenty-four years of politicazation, maleable managers willing to give the political leaders what they want to hear. Many of the good people has left. If John Bolton is confirmed, the rest of the good people will leave too. Because what's the point?
Nadler: It seems to be generally conceded that the facts were not true. Did they deliberately falsify, or were they ignorant and foolish? Some comfort, if they were foolish, then they weren't violating the law, but small comfort to people who are victims of war (the entire Iraqi and American peoples).
During the Vietnam war, checks and balances were applied, hearings were held. Now we have congress not willing to perform their functions, which is why we're here in this small room.
FROM KAREN AT THE HEARING: HC-5, The Big Room for hearings that are held in Congress, is open, and has been open during this entire time, and Pelosi's office called this morning and requested it, even offering to change the time, as it was open for two hours this morning, but were denied the use of the much larger room by the House Leadership. The evidence is clear--the House Leadership deliberately prevented this hearing from taking place in a room that would accommodate the large number of people slated to attend. Karen asks that everyone put this information out on all the blogs you can. It seems that the House Leadership thinks that it can do things like this without anyone finding out about it. Let's show them they are wrong.
We here at downingstreetmemo.com ask that after you read the above, please help pass the info along--and write your representatives to let them know that *we* know. We must help pressure the House leadership to allow the people's business to be done in the facilities *we paid for* irrespective of partisan fighting... it is the American people's business, it is what we pay them to do.
Mr. Bonifaz: "For Congress to say 'we don't want to see those memos, we don't care about them,' would be like Congress hearing about the Watergate tapes and saying, 'keep them, we're fine.'"
It's documentary evidence. Secret UK eyes only, deliberations at the highest levels of British government, report by intelligence just back from Washington. Not circumstantial. Must be taken seriously. Fits right into the nexus of other events.
