1100 Visitors at Iraq-Investigation Forum with Joseph Wilson

posted by ewing2001 on Thursday August 21, @06:04PM

Wilson implied, Rove was behind Smear Campaign: "It's of great interest to me to "see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs."

Inslee's Iraq forum draws 1,100

AP/Seattlepi.com -Thursday, August 21, 2003

Photo: Joseph Wilson (among the speakers)

SHORELINE, Wash. -- A day before President Bush's planned visit to Washington state, about 1,100 people packed a forum organized by U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee and demanded an investigation into the administration's case for invading Iraq.

Inslee, a Democrat, and three panelists offered a litany of complaints about what they described as the administration's exaggerations, including suggestions that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were in cahoots and that Saddam tried to obtain uranium from Africa.

"Why didn't Americans get the straight scoop?" Inslee asked. "Democracy demands an answer."

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Their arguments drew thunderous applause at nearly every turn. At one point, Inslee asked - to no avail - if there wasn't anyone in the audience who would defend the president.

Inslee said he is supporting bills calling for congressional and independent commissions to investigate, saying some of his colleagues who voted to authorize the invasion felt betrayed when they learned there was little or no evidence to back the administration's claims.

He said he hoped such an investigation would uncover who knew the uranium claim was false and when they knew it, and whether there was a pattern of hyping unfounded rumors to build the case for war.

When he announced the midweek forum, Inslee only expected about 200 people to show up. More than 1,000 signed up to attend, however, forcing the congressman to move the event into a larger conference center...

...Some members of the audience, which spilled into five overflow rooms, suggested that the United Nations or an independent commission should examine whether high-ranking administration officials deliberately misled the public.

The forum's star attraction was Joseph Wilson, the former American diplomat who blew the whistle on Bush's now-disavowed claim, made in his State of the Union address in January, that Iraq recently tried to buy uranium from Niger.

The Bush administration sent Wilson, who was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam, to Africa in early 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq was trying to acquire the uranium with the intent of building nuclear weapons.

Wilson found the reports to be "highly doubtful," and in July wrote to The New York Times to say the claim should not have been included in the State of the Union address. The administration subsequently disavowed it.

"There's no excuse for it," Wilson said Thursday. "It hits on the basis of our democracy. It impacts on our credibility at a very dangerous time."

Having taken the "highest risk, lowest reward" option in Iraq, Wilson said, "We run the risk of having a much bigger fight on our hands than we were ever told about by the crowd who said the Iraqis would be cheering from the rooftops" to greet the allies.

Another panelist, retired Navy Adm. Bill Center, a former deputy to Secretary of State Colin Powell, said he never believed the administration's claims that Iraq posed a threat because of its weapons of mass destruction.

If the United States had such good intelligence about Iraq's weapons, he noted, American officials could have shared it with U.N. weapons inspectors.

"Personally, I didn't feel very threatened," Center said. "I don't think many Americans felt very threatened."

The third panelist, Brewster Denny, the founder and first dean of the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs, suggested that the United States violated international law by invading, giving the international community "the royal finger" in the process.

Infos about Jay Inslee's Forum

U.S.Intelligence on Iraq
Is There a Need for a Congressional Investigation?

A look at the information given to Americans and leading to the war in Iraq

...Due to greater than expected response, the opportunity for the public to provide verbal testimony during the forum will be extremely limited. However, we will accept written testimony. You may bring written testimony to the forum or submit it via e-mail at InsleeIraqForum@mail.house.gov (please be sure to include your name and address with all written testimony). We will also post a copy of the event on U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee’s web site on Friday August 22nd, the day after the actual event. You may watch the web cast of the event starting on Friday August 22nd.

Inslee Forum on U.S. Intelligence on Iraq
Thursday, August 21, 2003
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Shoreline Conference Center, Shoreline Room
18560 1st Avenue NE
Shoreline, WA 98155

U.S. Representative Jay Inslee will hold a community forum and discussion of events regarding the intelligence that led to the war in Iraq. The discussion will focus on the gathering, interpretation, and distribution of intelligence on Iraq by the Bush administration prior to the start of the war, which information was shared with the public, and policy implications for the future of U.S. security and international relations.

U.S. Rep. Inslee will lead a panel discussion by policy experts, which will be followed by public comments. The expert panel members include Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Admiral Bill Center, and Professor Brewster Denny. They will focus their dicussion on how intelligence agencies investigated and interpreted the intelligence on Iraq, and the extent and manner to which such information was shared with the American people. Public comments and testimony on all aspects of this matter, including comments on the advisability of a bipartisan Congressional commission to investigate intelligence failures, will be welcomed after the expert panel concludes.

U.S. Rep. Inslee is currently a cosponsor of legislation to create a bipartisan independent commission to conduct an inquiry about intelligence failures on Iraq (H.R. 2625). To learn more about this legislation, click here.

AJW: First, the CIA would perform an internal investigation. The results of that would be passed on to the Justice Department for professional investigation. I don't think this will be dropped. It's of great interest to me to "see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." And I choose my words on this very carefully.

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