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'Media reports last weekend disclosed a consensus judgment of senior officers from across the intelligence community that the war in Iraq was having a serious negative impact on our efforts against terrorism. Ratter than reducing the number of terrorists worldwide and lessening the motivation of terrorist to attack the U.S. ,the war in Iraq is having precisly the opposite affect."These conclusions are reportly contained in the National Intelligence Estimate published last April. They are precisely the professional judgements that should have informed our debate through the spring and summer on the situation in Iraq and the best way to go forward. Sadly ,they did not and President Bush has left the public with the false impression about the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism.
"We did not invade Iraq to fight terrorism as the President would now have us believe but we.re less safe today because the war in Iraq has hindered our ability to make progress in combating terrorism. The reported NIE makes that case clearly.
"As the House prepares to debate critical funding bills for the Department of Defence this week,we need to consider fully the assessments of our intelligence agencies on terrorism. That is the reason I offered the motion to resolve the House into secret session. It was reqrettable,but not surprising the record of Congressional Republicans on oversight of anything connected with Iraq, that the motion was rejected.
"We have asked all Members to see the NIE and engage in secret session to debate it,to discuss it, to stipulate to a set of facts on it. Our distinguished members have asked for hearings in their committees.They have all joined the Democratic leadership in asking Speaker Hastert to call for hearings and we also believe that the entire NIE should be declassified."
Hastert will not let there be hearings. He needs to go. To make that happen donate to John Leasch
http://www.john06.com
