Hearing Afterthoughts

John Bonifaz
The Dharma Bums would like to thank those people who participated in the Downing Street Memo hearing yesterday. Most especially, we'd like to offer our sincere gratitude to John Bonifaz who has done very serious work on this memo, and offered the most cogent and thoughtful analysis of the issues.

Here are our top 10 questions we think need to be answered:

1. Who participated in Cheney's Energy Task Force in 2001?

2. Was the invasion of Iraq raised and discussed by that task force?

3. Did the US and Britain increase bombing raids after July 2002 and before March 2003?

4. Who actually supplied the WMD intelligence data that the US used to preemptively strike Iraq?

5. If the intelligence was wrong, why did Tenet get a medal?

6. Do we have permanent military bases along an oil pipeline in Afghanistan?

7. Will there be permanent US military bases in Iraq?

8. Which oil companies have controlling interest in the oil fields of Iraq and Afghanistan?

9. Who did Sir Richard Dearlove meet with in the US, when he was apprised that, "There was a perceptible shift in attitude. 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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

10. Did George W. Bush knowingly deceive and mislead Congress when he sought and received their support for the power to order the invasion of Iraq?