War Is A Crime .org

Charles Goyette (www.charlesgoyette.com), the radio host who was fired by ClearChannel for reporting facts about Iraq in the buildup to the war, today interviewed Noam Chomsky about the Bush Administration's militarism and David Swanson about www.AfterDowningStreet.org.

Here's Chomsky:
http://www.charlesgoyette.com/archive/media/2005-06-08-Charles-02.mp3

Here's Swanson:
http://www

'USA Today' Defends Lack of Coverage for Downing Street Memo
Edior and Publisher
By E&P Staff
Published: June 08, 2005 1:05 PM ET

NEW YORK In a report on President Bush's joint press conference late yesterday afternoon with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, USA Today for the first time mentioned the so-called Downing Street Memo, first reported in London's Sunday Times on May 1, and explained why the Gannett flagship had not previously covered the memo story.

The Downing Street Memo is reported to be minutes of a July 2002 meeting among Blair and some of his top intelligence and national-security aides. One of the aides reportedly told Blair at the meeting that the Bush administration has already decided to go to war with Iraq and was looking for justification. "Intelligence and facts were being fixed" to make war appear inevitable, the memo reportedly stated. Its veracity has not been contested by No. 10 Downing Street.

Here's Bush's schedule for those who want to try to ask him about the Downing Street Minutes or even to stage a peaceful nonviolent protest.Wednesday, June 8, 2005

*NEW DETAILS: BUSH in Washington DC, 10:30am: President Bush will welcome Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House on June 8, 2005. This meeting will provide an opportunity to invigorate U.S.-Turkish cooperation with respect to Turkey's European Union aspirations, and to strengthen our work together to advance freedom in Iraq and the Broader Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. [White House Release, 5/24/05; 6/7/05]

By Dave Lindorff

At this point, it seems almost pointless to say it, but once again, the corporate media in America have been exposed as a cowardly mass of toadies who cannot bring themselves to publish or air anything remotely critical of the administration unless compelled to do so by cattle prods...or a reporter from a foreign news organization.

By DamnedEmpire.blogspot.com

"There's nothing farther from the truth." Gorge W. Bush regarding the Downing Street Memo June 7, 2005. New York Times article

It has taken Bush more than a month to make a comment regaring this and then he did so only with Tony Blair in attendance.

Bush will be on Fox Today at 4 p.m. ET.

See:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,88072,00.html

Recommend questions to ask him here: cavuto@foxnews.com

By Kevin Zeese, Democracy Rising

I interviewed James Bamford, the author of The Puzzle Palace (which exposed the National Security Agency) and recently of Pretext for War. He is noted investigative writer on intelligence. Below is a relevant exchange in the interview:
Zeese: What kind of pressure, if any, was put on U.S. intelligence agencies to come up with a basis for the war?

Bamford: Intelligence was manipulated, mangled, ignored, and analysts were harassed and bullied to present the false picture that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. In talking with intelligence analysts and case officers, in the months leading up to the war none believed that Iraq posed a threat to the U.S. The most basic evidence was the fact that Iraq had never begun work on a long-range missile system (unlike Iran and North Korea), something that can be easily seen by imaging satellites space with a resolution down to the centimeter. And no country has ever built a warhead without simultaneously building a delivery system.

Liz Herbert is the Editorial Director of the Rapid Response Network. The Rapid Response Network offers guest commentary at Democracy for America every Monday.

As the chattering class

Please post as comments below the responses Congress Members and Senators send you to your Emails.

By David Swanson, www.afterdowningstreet.org

The corporate media today began its coverage of the Downing Street Minutes, moved to do so by a visit to Washington by Prime Minister Tony Blair, and by the pressure all of us have applied.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Jonathan Riskind
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

WASHINGTON � Addressing what has been a simmering issue for some Democrats and liberal activists, President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday dismissed a British government memo that asserts the Bush administration essentially cooked the facts to justify the Iraq war.

"Somebody said we had made up our mind to use military force," Bush said at a White House news conference.

"There�s nothing farther from the truth. Both of us didn�t want to use our military. It was our last option."

Seldom-Discussed Elephant Moves Into Public's View
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post
Wednesday, June 8, 2005; A14

Yesterday's East Room meeting of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair was worth a cool $1,000 to Steve Holland, Reuters' chief White House correspondent, if he cares to collect it.

Earlier in the day, Democrats.com, a group of left-wing activists, sent out an e-mail offering a "reward" to anyone who could get an answer from Bush about whether a recently leaked British government memo from 2002 was correct in saying the Bush administration had "fixed" the intelligence about Iraq's weapons to justify war.

World Opinion Roundup: Blair and The Downing Street Memo
Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 7, 2005; 1:00 PM

In his weekly discussion, washingtonpost.com staff writer Jefferson Morley conducts a freewheeling tour of the best of Internet news sites from Afghanistan to Beijing to Mexico City to Paris to Zimbabwe.
Jefferson Morley was online Tuesday, June 7, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the Downing Street Memo and Prime Minister Tony Blair 's visit to the White House.

Read today's World Opinion Roundup: The Downing Street Memo Story Won't Die.

By Salon.com

Tony Blair is in Washington today to talk with George W. Bush about aid for Africa, but it might be an opportune moment for the White House press corps to talk about something else: The 2002 Downing Street memo which shows that Blair was told that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support Bush's plan to depose Saddam Hussein through military force.

Bush held a press conference last week, but no one in the White House press corps bothered to ask him about the memo then. Reporters will probably get another chance to ask today, this time with Blair sitting right there in the room, too. They can even get paid for asking. Democrats.com has posted a $1,000 reward for any reporter who gets Bush to give a "yes or no" answer to the question, "In July 2002, did you and your administration 'fix' the intelligence and facts about non-existent Iraqi WMD's and ties to terrorism -- which were disputed by U.S. intelligence officials -- to sell your decision to invade Iraq to Congress, the American people, and the world -- as quoted in the Downing Street Minutes?" Hell, they'll get a hundred bucks if they just ask the question without getting an answer.

Here are eight officials who must be lying if Bush is telling the truth.

See: http://www.democrats.com/node/4932

By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY

A simmering controversy over whether American media have ignored a secret British memo about how President Bush built his case for war with Iraq bubbled over into the White House on Tuesday.

At a late afternoon news conference, Reuters correspondent Steve Holland asked Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair about a memo that's been widely written about and discussed in Europe but less so in the USA.

It was the most attention paid by the media in the USA so far to the "Downing Street memo," first reported on May 1 by The Sunday Times of London. The memo is said by some of the president's sharpest critics, such as Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, to be strong evidence that Bush decided to go to war and then looked for evidence to support his decision.

Joint statements follow criticism by Iraq war foes
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | June 8, 2005

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain for the first time yesterday jointly addressed a question that has persisted for the past month: What was the truth about a leaked 2002 memo written by a British official suggesting that the United States had ''fixed" intelligence to justify an impending invasion of Iraq?

Both leaders denied that the July 23 memo, written as a description of a meeting between Britain's top intelligence official and members of the Bush administration, accurately reflected events.

Two leaders deny that intelligence was manipulated to justify war on Iraq
By JULIE MASON, Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - President Bush denied on Tuesday the substance of a 2002 memo in which a top British intelligence official claimed the administration manipulated facts and intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.
In a brief appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House, Bush said "there's nothing farther from the truth."

"We worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully," Bush said. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

by David Michael Green, Common Dreams

The Downing Street Memo is the gift that just keeps on giving. And well it should. It is the smoking gun which proves that the gravest possible crime was committed by the Bush administration, and among its victims were the American people.
I am more hopeful about American politics than I have been in a long time, though still cautious. For nearly five years now, the Bush administration has gotten away with murder - literally and figuratively - with seemingly immutable impunity, always defying the laws of political gravity, at least as they are known in this universe. So I've come to be tentative and rather pessimistic about the possibilities of ending this national nightmare of reaction, thievery and militarism, and bringing these criminals to justice.

(Published Tuesday, June 7, 2005 10:58:27 AM CDT)
Gazette Extra
By Mike DuPre', Gazette Staff

CLINTON-The Iraq War is a mess that's only getting messier, Sen. Russ Feingold said before and during a listening session Monday.

"The mantra for Fox News is that we only hear the bad news," Feingold, a Democrat, said of the media outlet thought by many observers to be right wing.

"I was over there (in February), and we don't hear enough bad news," Feingold said before the session.

He traveled with four other senators, including Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. The other four voted in support of the Iraq War, while Feingold opposed it.

More Proof Iraq War Was Pre-Determined
By David Sirota

The newly-released Downing Street Memo showing President Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to go to war with Iraq in 2002 has once again raised the question of why the Bush administration lied to America in the lead up to the conflict.

And amazingly, it is not the only piece of hard evidence proving that - well before the war (and during the supposed "diplomatic" phase) - the Bush administration had already decided to go to war in Iraq - no matter whether Iraq was really an "imminent threat" or not.

June 7, 2005

STATEMENT BY CONSTITUTIONAL ATTORNEY JOHN BONIFAZ ON BEHALF OF AFTERDOWNINGSTREET.ORG ON TODAY'S JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE WITH PRESIDENT BUSH AND BRITISH PRIME MINISTER BLAIR

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair continued today to try to hide from the explosive revelations in the Downing Street Minutes.

Neither President Bush nor Prime Minister Blair denied today that the Downing Street Minutes are, in fact, the official minutes of the secret meeting that Prime Minister Blair held in London on July 23, 2002, with his top national security officials to receive a briefing from Richard Dearlove, then director of Britain�s CIA equivalent, MI-6.

Moments ago, Bush and Blair answered a question about the Downing Street Minutes.

[Comments in brackets By] David Swanson, www.afterdowningstreet.org

HUME: When we come back with our panel, the memo that the left says the U.S. media won't talk about it. Well, we'll talk about it, next.

[Thanks! Here's a memo about your refusal to talk about it in the past:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=16 ]

HUME: We're back with our panel.

It is regarded on the anti-war left as proof positive that President Bush intended from the start to go to war in Iraq and rigged American intelligence to support the case. It is called the Downing Street Memo, and it is such a focal point now that it even has its own Web site, www.downingstreetmemo.com.

Senator Ted Kennedy has raised his powerful voice on this issue.

Please thank him, and ask him to address the constitutional consequences of this evidence by endorsing a full congressional investigation via the House Judiciary Committee on whether the President has committed impeachable offenses.

Read Kennedy's statement:
http://tedkennedy.com/journal

Sign his petition:
http://www.tedkennedy.com/page/petition/downingstreet

... To Demand Resolution of Inquiry into Downing Street Memo

Members of Gold Star Families for Peace will be meeting with members of Congress on 15 June, 2005 to demand that each individual member act in accordance with his/her conscience, integrity, courage and duty as employees of America sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and abide by its contents.

WAR IS A CRIME (FORMERLY AFTER DOWNING STREET) COALITION MEMBERS

Organizations and individuals interested in joining should contact us.

See also, the list of organizations supporting prosecution of Bush, Cheney, et alia.

Organizations

1% A Peace Army
A Bigger Tent
Action Center for Justice
Agir contre la guerre (France)
Alliance Marxist-Leninist (Marxist-Leninist Review)
America In Solidarity

Jefferson Morley of the Washington Post discussed the Downing Street Minutes as part of the Post's Live Online feature.

Morley is one of the reporters at the Post taking this issue the most seriously. See his article here

On the Downing Street Minutes
by Senator Edward M Kennedy, Daily Kos
Tue Jun 7th, 2005 at 07:18:49 PDT
Cross-posted at www.tedkennedy.com

The contents of the Downing Street Minutes confirm that the Bush Administration was determined to go to war in Iraq, regardless of whether there was any credible justification for doing so.

The Administration distorted and misrepresented the intelligence in its attempt to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorists of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and with weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have.

Byron Williams writes a twice weekly column for the Oakland Tribune and other media outlets. Below are columns he's written on the Downing Street Memo on May 12, 20, 23, June 1, 3, and 7. Six pieces, exactly six more than we've seen on, say, ABC News.

Bush attempts to tarnish FDR's foreign policy image
May 12, 2005
Byron Williams

IF President Bush would attempt to systematically dismantle Franklin D. Roosevelt's prize domestic policy in Social Security, logic would suggest that any criticism of the former president's foreign policy is almost a given.

While in Europe commemorating the 60th anniversary of V-E Day, the president publicly embraced one of the long-held historical positions of far-right conservatism � that the Yalta Agreement was the betrayal of freedom and Roosevelt is the culprit.