Iraq-war inquiry still needed

[annabanana]

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050520/OPINION03/505200365/1110

Is it the "smoking gun" that proves President Bush misled the nation into war?

Not quite. But it should be enough for Congress finally to see its duty and launch a formal, independent inquiry.

What's come to be called the Downing Street Memo seems to confirm what opponents of the Iraq invasion suspected all along: that the president decided early on to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, then tailored the intelligence to fit the preconceived course of action. The memo caused an uproar in Britain just before the recent election but has received little attention in the United States, except as a hot topic in the blogosphere.

The memo, published by the Times of London on May 1, consists of secret minutes of a British cabinet meeting in July 2002, eight months before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq. The minutes include a report on talks in Washington: "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."