Reply #6: Like Joe Wilson, Cindy Sheehan, Ray McGovern.......?

[paineinthearse]

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/6-16-05hearingtext.html

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U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
HEARING ON THE "DOWNING STREET" MEMO
Thursday, June 16, 2005
2:30 p.m.
HC-9 The Capitol
Washington, D.C.


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C O N T E N T S
TESTIMONY OF:
Ambassador Joseph Wilson 6
Cindy Sheehan 23
Ray McGovern
CIA Analyst 34
John Bonifaz, Esq. 40

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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 MR. CONYERS: --men and
3 women in harm's way based on false information.
4 The fact that our intelligence is found to be
5 flawed in no way absolves those who would
6 intentionally mislead our nation or its allies. We
7 can't do anything in this hearing to change the
8 facts and the problems on the ground in Iraq today,
9 but we can pledge today to do everything within our
10 power to find out how we got there and to make sure
11 it never happens again.
12 I'm proud now to have our witnesses who we
13 will ask them--Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Mrs. Cindy
14 Sheehan, Mr. Ray McGovern, attorney John Bonifaz,
15 to please stand and take an oath that everything
16 that you say will be truthful. Raise your right
17 hands, please.
18
19 MR. CONYERS: Let the record show the
20 witnesses indicated that they said "yes," and
21 please be seated.
22 Let me briefly describe our witnesses.

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1 Attorney John Bonifaz is the founder and general
2 counsel of the, a prominent legal center in the
3 campaign finance field. In February and March
4 2003, he served as lead counsel for a coalition of
5 United States soldiers, parents of soldiers, and
6 members of Congress in a federal lawsuit in which I
7 and Representative Kucinich of Ohio were a part of
8 challenging the authority of President Bush and
9 Secretary Rumsfeld to launch a war against Iraq
10 absent a congressional declaration of war or
11 equivalent action.
12 Mr. Ray McGovern, a 27-year career as a
13 CIA analyst, spanned administrations from John F.
14 Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. His duties included
15 at the CIA sharing national intelligence estimates,
16 preparing the president's brief. These, the most
17 authoritative genres of intelligence reporting,
18 have been the focus of press reporting on weapons
19 of mass destruction in Iraq and on what the
20 President was told before 9/11.
21 During the mid-1980s Mr. McGovern was one
22 of the senior analysts conducting early morning

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1 briefings for the President's daily brief, one of
2 the senior analysts conducting early morning
3 briefings, one on one with the Vice President, the
4 Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of
5 the Joint Chiefs and the Assistant to the President
6 for National Security Affairs.
7 Mrs. Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Casey
8 Austin Sheehan, age 24, killed in action in Iraq.
9 Mrs. Sheehan founded the Gold Star Families for
10 Peace in January 2005. The Gold Star Families for
11 Peace is dedicated to bringing United States troops
12 home immediately from Iraq.
13 Our first witness, Ambassador Joseph
14 Wilson, has been involved in international politics
15 for more than 20 years. He served as the Acting
16 U.S. Ambassador in Iraq during Operation Desert
17 Shield and was the last American official to meet
18 with Saddam Hussein before the first Gulf War.
19 In 2002 at the request of Vice President
20 Cheney, Mr. Wilson was assigned to the CIA to
21 investigate--was seeking to acquire whether Saddam
22 Hussein was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger

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1 for the purpose of advancing his nuclear program.
2 Mr. Wilson reported back to Washington that there
3 was no basis for the claims.
4 Surprised that President Bush repeated
5 that claim in his 2003 State of the Union address
6 when it had been excerpted from previous speeches,
7 Mr. Wilson wrote a New York Times op-ed piece
8 asserting that the Bush administration had
9 exaggerated the public case for invading Iraq.
10 Shortly thereafter, White House officials called
11 reporters to identify Mr. Wilson's wife Valerie
12 Plame as a clandestine CIA operative.
13 Mr. Wilson also has a book out now, and we
14 welcome him to begin the testimony.
15 Welcome to this forum, sir.
16 TESTIMONY OF AMBASSADOR JOSEPH WILSON
17 MR. WILSON: Thank you, Congressman
18 Conyers, and good afternoon.
19 It's an honor to appear before this
20 hearing to discuss the so-called Downing Street
21 Memorandum of July 2002, and the assertion
22 contained therein that the in the Bush

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