10 Downing Street
-Please contact us by e-mail, telephone or by Fax for more details
of the products and services described in this web site.
A number of citizen groups and Democratic politicians are launching an initiative to investigate information contained in newly unearthed British memos on the war in Iraq, and to demand answers from President Bush. The memorandums provide further evidence that Bush's administration had no reasonable plan for achieving stability or rebuilding Iraq after the war, and build on earlier 10 Downing Street memos that state it was "fixing" intelligence information to remove Saddam Hussein months before the war started.
Representative John Conyers, along with 89 members of Congress, have openly asked the administration to address claims it cooked the books to justify the war. On Thursday, June 16, Conyers and other Democrats will hold "Memogate hearings" in Washington D.C. to listen to testimony concerning the British documents from 10 Downing Street and the administration's efforts to manipulate data concerning Iraq.
The hearing is going to try and answer questions brought about by the revelations that were brought to our attention, according to the umbrella group AfterDowningStreet.org, a coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups and political activist groups that will join the effort. After the hearing, Conyers and fellow Democrats will deliver a petition to the White House demanding that President Bush "directly address the evidence in the Downing St. Memo of intelligence manipulation and public deceit in the rush to invade Iraq."
What has come to be known as the 10 Downing Street Memo, disclosed by the Sunday Times of London on May 1, is top British aide Matthew Rycroft's record of the minutes of a meeting of Blair's senior policy aides on July 23, 2002. In it, among other things, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case for war was thin as Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran. The memo also said that Britain and America had to create conditions to justify a war, and that military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.