The Downing Street Memo - MemoGate

It appears that we finally have the long sought after documentary evidence to prove what the circumstantial evidence has pointed to all along.

What is the Downing Street Memo?
The Downing Street Memo "is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003."

The contents of the memo that have everyone talking detail how the Bush Administration did not believe that Iraq was a greater threat to the nation than other countries, how they knew that the war was not legal and needed to create the justification to make it so and how they stated their intentions to "fix the intelligence" to that policy.

The Memo was originally printed in the Times of London on May 1st, 2005 but the American media only just picked up on it last week, more than a month after it became public and they are still not reporting on it widely.

In a positive note, about a half dozen US Representatives participated in John Conyer's hearing yesterday about the Downing Street Memo and what it means.

They held it in a tiny room in the basement of the Capitol, even though there were larger rooms available, the Majority leadership would not let him use it. Talk about obstructionist...

The panel of people who testified included Joe Wilson, former U.N. Weapons inspector, Ray McGovern, a longtime CIA Intelligence Analyst, John Bonifaz, an attorney and head of the National Voting Rights Institute and Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier killed in Iraq.

John Bonifaz's testimony is what I found most interesting, because he explained what the Downing Memo is and what it means. He explained the legal framework for what this evidence means and how it is more than adequate justification for Congress to call for formal hearings into the matter.
Joe Wilson and Ray McGovern both provided examples and a timetable of exactly how the Bush Administration fixed intelligence and knowingly used incorrect intelligence such as the Niger Yellowcake Uranium claims to manufacture the false sense of threat about Iraq.

The Downing Street Memo represents nothing less than documentary evidence that George W. Bush and his Cabinet engaged in a conspiracy to decieve the American public into a unnecessary war. That is not only a high crime worthy of impeachment, if it is true it constitutes nothing less than Treason.

I found yesterday's hearing to be invigorating and refreshing. It was really nice to see U.S. Representatives actually doing something for a change. It gave me some hope that they might finally get themselves organized. However from what I saw yesterday they have a lot of work to do yet just to get themselves organized.

I remain hopeful.