Unclesam Search info RE: Cindy Sheehan

[The Straight Story]

Not sure any of this is new, but it may help some come up to speed on the whole issue: (used http://www.google.com/unclesam)

On nightline - January 27, 2005

TED KOPPEL

(OC) Let me -do something right away that's going to catch our folks upstairs, I think, or out in the truck a little but unawares. We have a number of military families here. We have a number of men and women here who have served in Iraq. Is there any one of you who would like to get up right now -family member or service member, and respond to what the congresswoman said? Yes, ma'am? Would you pass the mic? Would you identify yourself?

CINDY SHEEHAN, MOTHER OF US SOLDIER

My name is Cindy Sheehan from California. My son, Specialist Casey Sheehan was killed on April 4th in Iraq. And he was killed in the same ambush that Bill Mitchell's son, Mike Mitchell was killed in. I founded an organization called Gold Star Families for Peace. And I just wished to God that someone had listened to Congresswoman Schakowsky when she raised those questions. Because my son was sent over there based on false reasons. My son was a brave man. And I thank all of the military here for their service because they're honorable and brave people. But we need to bring our children home before it's too late for them and for their families. It's too late for my son and my family. And I'd also like to thank you, Mr. Koppel, for reading our children's names that one day. Unfortunately my son was one of them. And there's hundreds more since that day.

http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/article_1_27_05_Nightline.html



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Lawmakers Intervene to Help Arrange Rumsfeld
Meeting for Mothers of Sons Slain in Iraq

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Four U.S. Congressmen are urging Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to meet with a group of women whose sons were killed while serving in Iraq. The lawmakers, three Democrats and one Republican, sent the Secretary a letter after the Pentagon failed to respond to the mothers’ repeated attempts to secure a meeting on their own.

Representatives George Miller (D-Martinez), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Ken Calvert (R-CA), and Mike Doyle (D-PA) sent the letter after five mothers of fallen soldiers contacted the lawmakers to report that their efforts to arrange a meeting at the Pentagon – by phone, mail, and in person – went unanswered. Four of the five women live in the lawmakers’ respective districts.

“As you well know, few sacrifice more than those who answer the Armed Forces’ call to duty,” the lawmakers wrote to Rumsfeld. “And for the families of the fallen, we owe an enormous debt of gratitude. We now ask your help in granting these mothers the meeting that they have been so persistently requesting and, in our opinion, deserve.”

The five mothers – four from California, one from Pennsylvania – are Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, CA; Vickie Castro of Corona, CA; Jane Bright of West Hills, CA; Karen Meredith of Mountain View, CA; and Dianne Santoriello of Pittsburgh, PA.

“No one knows the pain that war causes more intimately than these women,” said Miller. “These mothers have suffered an enormous loss for our nation, and the fact that the Defense Department will not even reply to their request for a meeting is beyond belief. They lost their sons and all they’ve asked for is a meeting. The planners of this war owe them the courtesy of a response and of a meeting.”

For a PDF copy of the letter to Rumsfeld, go to www.house.gov/georgemiller/newweb/DODletter.pdf. (pdf file)

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Page: H4886

So I think not only should we encourage Secretary Rumsfeld to meet
with them, we should insist on that. The Defense Department, the Pentagon, and the White House, they owe these families an audience. They owe them an audience.

And the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) asked the questions that would be very difficult, I think, for this administration to respond to if, in fact, Cindy Sheehan asked those questions. But I believe they have paid the supreme price and they deserve the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State and all of those who crafted this war, they deserve to meet with them to hear from them, and these parents need that audience and that is the minimal thing that we should insist on.

Mr. RANGEL. I tell you as a lawyer and someone that would advise somebody, I would not ask them to ask to see Secretary Rumsfeld.

Members have to remember this is the same person that told the whole country that he did not know whether we were winning or losing the war. Is that something to tell someone?

He said that it is a slog, whatever the heck that is. And he said something that he was so right in, that he really did not know whether we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. And we can answer him, and the world can, because we lack the sensitive sophistication to understand that a life is a life, whether it is an American, whether it is an Iraqi, in the tens of thousands and sometimes the hundreds of thousands.

I talked with Colin Powell about this and I asked him, How do you train a young patriotic soldier to go to a foreign country to kill terrorists that you do not know what they look like, what uniform they wear, what language they speak, and you can only react when you are being fired upon? Can you imagine how many terrorists we create when these cowardly people go to a school, go to a hospital, go to a mosque and fire at our troops? And those who have served would know, you have no option except to destroy where that fire is coming from. And if you destroy innocent people, we no longer call that human life. You know what we call it? Collateral damage.

Ms. WATERS. Well, Cindy Sheehan has already made the inquiry. She had made calls. She has written the letter and now she has asked the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) to help her. He started to circulate a letter, which I signed, and I would like to encourage others, because we are not encouraging her to start this. She has already been doing it. And she is simply put out with the fact that she can get no response, no returned telephone calls, anything. And I think that we should give her some support.

In addition to that, I do think perhaps one of the things we should look at further is support for all the families who have questions, because what I am hearing is families are not being told how their children died. They get the message that it has happened, but when they start to ask for details and particulars they are not getting it. And as they put together these budgets, these budgets ask for whatever they think it is they need. And I think it is time to include in the budgets some assistance to the families, that they can at least be respected enough to be given the information, for somebody to sit down and talk with them and answer the questions, tell the truth. They may not get the truth. They may not get the questions answered in the way they want to, but I think we are going to have to try to work at forcing that to happen.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r109:1:./temp/~r109NWCqMv:e47691:


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REP. LYNN WOOLSEY
SMART SECURITY & THE PRESIDENT'S IRAQ SPEECH
5 MINUTES
JUNE 29, 2005

MR. SPEAKER, THE HEADLINE IN THIS MORNING'S WASHINGTON POST READS: ``BUSH SAYS WAR IS WORTH SACRIFICE.'' WELL, EASY FOR HIM TO SAY, BECAUSE HE HAS NOT SACRIFICED A THING, UNLESS YOU COUNT HIS SAGGING POLL NUMBERS.

THIS PRESIDENT NEEDS TO LOOK INTO THE EYES OF MORE THAN 1,700 WIDOWS OR GRIEVING MOTHERS AND FATHERS AND TELL THEM HIS PREEMPTIVE WAR IS WORTH THE SACRIFICE.

HE NEEDS TO TELL IT TO MY FRIEND CINDY SHEEHAN, WHO CAME TO WASHINGTON TWO WEEKS AGO AND SPOKE MOVINGLY ABOUT WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO SEE HER SON CASEY, LYING IN A COFFIN WITH THE SAME LACK OF MUSCLE TONE HE HAD AS A NEWBORN INFANT 25 YEARS BEFORE.

CASEY SHEEHAN AND HIS FAMILY WERE TOLD THERE WERE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. THEY WERE TOLD SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS CONNECTED TO THE ATTACKS ON AMERICA NEARLY 4 YEARS AGO. AND LONG AFTER THAT MYTH HAD BEEN DEBUNKED, PRESIDENT BUSH STILL HAD THE AUDACITY TO GO BEFORE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE LAST NIGHT AND RAISE THE ``BLOODY FLAG OF 9/11,'' AS A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL PUT IT.

http://woolsey.house.gov/SMARTfloorstatements.asp?ARTICLE4824=43557

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Interview on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, there has also been a lot of talk back here in the United States about these Downing Street memos, the minutes of a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair in the spring and summer of 2002, where they discussed their meetings with the United States. I want to show you what one mother, Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a U.S. soldier, had to say about that memo this week: "The so-called Downing Street memo dated 23 July 2002 only confirms what I already suspected: the leadership of this country rushed us into an illegal invasion of another sovereign country on prefabricated and cherry-picked intelligence."

How do you respond to Mrs. Sheehan?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I can only say what the President has said many, many times. The United States of America and its coalition decided that it was finally time to deal with the threat of Saddam Hussein. There had been multiple resolutions against Saddam Hussein and his activities, everything from concerns about his weapons of mass destruction programs and his continued unwillingness to answer the legitimate questions of the international system about those programs, his having used weapons of mass destruction in the past, everything concerning the way that he treated his own people. After all, we found more than 300,000 people in mass graves.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/48299.htm

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