By now I think everyone in the country can conclude that the threat Iraq posed to the country was hyped up by the governments of several countries, and that specious intelligence was used as “fact.” Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction that could be launched against our allies with only 45 minutes notice. There is no evidence that suggests Hussein would give weapons to terrorists, and no evidence that they even supported one another’s actions (with a great deal of evidence saying they did not). A former Cabinet member has said that Bush was planning this war from the moment he was sworn in, and just used a national tragedy to get the country behind him. We’ve seen our country lied to—or at the very least misled—on what I think everyone can agree is a significant issue facing the entire world, and it’s time that we do something about it.
Several advocacy groups such as MoveOn.org, True Majority, and Working Assets are sponsoring a campaign to convince Congress to use their power to officially reprimand President Bush. According to the last MoveOn e-mail, over 500,000 people had signed their petition to ask their representatives and senators to censure Bush, and the list has been steadily growing since then. I encourage everyone to join the campaign, to send a message to the White House that the American people won’t be lied to.
Not convinced it’s necessary? From the moment the war started being publicly discussed, it has been surrounded by deception and intrigue. We’ve heard from intelligence analysts who have said that they were told to come up with evidence to support pre-formed conclusions, instead of offering unbiased views. In the State of the Union speech, the administration found a way to sneak in the shaky intelligence on Niger by blaming it on the British. When the people didn’t swallow the “The British screwed up, not me” story, he blamed it on the CIA and said that he just reads what they give him. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want just a talking head for a president.
And to top it all off, when the Niger intelligence was proved wrong for certain, the wife of the man to do it was exposed as a CIA agent, putting her life, and the lives of everyone she has ever worked with, in danger. The investigation, which was put off for as long as possible, is reaching all the way to presidential aides and the upper echelon.
Now, more than ever, Congress needs to use its power to officially reprimand the president for abusing the trust the American people have given to him to serve them in their best interests, and not in the interests of his father and his father’s old buddies.
