‘Downing Street Memo’ Letter Draws 550,000 Signatures, White House Protest

Several members of the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Representative John Conyers, deliver a letter with over 550,000 signatures to the White House demanding answers to questions surrounding a memo from British intelligence that in 2002 said, “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 letter asks five questions:

1) Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain’s commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to “fix” the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

Cindy Sheehan, mother of humvee mechanic Army Specialist Casey Sheehan who was killed in Iraq, speaks to the hundreds of people who attended a rally at the White House demanding a response to the letter and an end to the war.

Several speakers declared “This is the beginning of the end” saying today to be a “tipping point,” citing more press coverage and an “Out of Iraq” congressional caucus which formed in the US house today.