Conyers: My Hometown Paper Weighs In on DSM

[MelissaB]

Thursday, June 23rd, 2005

My Hometown Paper Weighs In on DSM

Kudos to my hometown paper, the Detroit Free Press, for weighing in yesterday on the Downing Street Minutes in a major way. Not only do they include a guest editorial from yours truly (excerpts from my letter to the president demanding answers), but they penned their own editorial declaring that the DSM are important news. Among other things, their editorial states, "Most important for today, the evidence reflects an administration that makes a major decision and then finds or fits the evidence to back it up and sell it. That's not thoughtful policy. It's marketing." Both are worth a read.


Blogged by JC on 06.23.05 @ 07:51 AM ET

[MelissaB]

1. Link

http://www.conyersblog.us/

Duh! Sorry!

[murielm99]

2. The editorial from the Detroit Free Press (theirs, not yours)

was reprinted in my local daily today, the Freeport-Journal Standard.

BTW, good job on your guest editorial.

[MelissaB]

3. I never said it was "mine". This is from Conyers blog.

:)

[Octafish]

4. Detroit Free Press

It's been a while since I was proud of the Free Press.

The Downing Street Memos

Not just old news, the British documents raise important questions on the White House's credibility

June 22, 2005

Granted, finding a way to end the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq is at present more pressing than re-examining the rationale that was developed to start the war there more than two years ago. But the so-called Downing Street memos are still too significant to be dismissed as simply old news -- as the White House would like -- or left to historians.

They speak to the credibility of the administration of President George W. Bush, which is now telling the American people that significant progress is being made in Iraq and the murderous insurgency there is in its final throes. Meantime, U.S. military leaders say rebel attacks have remained constant at 50-60 a day, and last month was the deadliest for Iraqi civilians since the March 2003 U.S. invasion.

The Downing Street memos, excerpts of which you can read on this page, along with other commentary about them on the opposite page, shine some light on the internal thinking of the most secretive U.S. administration in modern times. They were prepared by top British officials as Prime Minister Tony Blair pondered his critical decision to join Bush in the war against Iraq.

Based on meetings with administration officials, they support the premise that, despite public claims to the contrary, the Bush administration saw war against Iraq as a first, not last, option after the 9/11 attacks and manipulated bad intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

"The truth," a top British official said in a March 22, 2002, memo to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, "is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September ... the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up." Three days later, in a memo to Blair, Straw said that "there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL (Osama bin Laden) and Al Qaida."

CONTINUED...

http://www.freep.com/voices/editorials/ememos22e_20050622.htm

DSM Excerpts:

http://www.freep.com/voices/editorials/eexcerpts22e_20050622.htm

When the Freep and the rest of Knight-Ridder and Corporate McPravda start calling for impeachment, I'll be a big fan, again.