Conyers: "We can't afford to stand by any longer"

Calls grow to close Gitmo jail, seek truth on Downing Street Memo
People's Weekly World Newspaper
06/09/05 09:32

By Susan Webb

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On May 29, the Times reported new evidence, from the British Defense Ministry, that in mid-2002 the U.S. and Britain doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq, and “by the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive” — months before U.S. congressional authorization of military action, and while the UN was urgently trying to avert war.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and 88 other members of Congress wrote to Bush on May 5 requesting answers about the information revealed in the Downing Street Memo. The memo “casts serious doubt on many of the contentions of the Bush administration in the lead up to the Iraq war,” Conyers says on his campaign web site. “With over 1,600 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen killed in Iraq, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and over $200 billion in taxpayer funds going to this war effort, we cannot afford to stand by any longer.”

Noting that the White House has “stonewalled” the lawmakers’ request, Conyers says, “I believe the American people deserve answers about this matter and should demand directly that the president tell the truth about the memo.”

After Conyers posted a public version of the letter to Bush on the web site, it was overwhelmed with responses. “At times, I am receiving 10 e-mails a minute,” he wrote on the site. Members of the public can add their names to the letter at www.JohnConyers.com.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/7184/1/273/