The Downing Street Memo – minutes of a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair and his advisors that said the U.S. was “fixing” the intelligence to support the Iraq War – was not enough to get the mainstream U.S. media or members of Congress to take the issue seriously. Now there is Downing II, III, IV, V, VI and VII!
As the evidence mounts, the failure of the media to seriously investigate the issues is baffling. Why aren’t they interviewing current and former U.S. military intelligence officials about these reports from highest levels of British government? Isn’t the media supposed to investigate and get the truth for their readers and viewers?
And, how about Congress – shouldn’t they be subpoenaing witnesses to testify under oath about pre-war intelligence gathering, the influence Bush administration had on manipulating or misstating intelligence findings and whether intelligence was gathered to report the truth or designed to support a pre-ordained war? The Chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, has promised to investigate whether intelligence was manipulated by the Administration – but that promise remains unfulfilled and last week Knight-Ridder reporter Dick Polman was told it was “still on the back burner.” Maybe it is time to make good on that promise.
How much more information is needed before the truth is sought and reported to the American people?
Here’s a summary of the British memos: (author summarizes each of 7 Downing Street memos)
SEE:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=8086