In a stunning development which fell with the silence of a feather yesterday, nine Republicans broke with their iron-fisted party to put country first, and voted to send Rep. Dennis Kucinich's article of impeachment HR 1345 to the Judiciary, where Chairman John Conyers will hold a hearings on abuses of power by the Bush administration, according to the Congressional Quaterly's CQToday. The final vote was: Yea 238 - Nay 180.
The Nine Republicans are:
Congressman Kevin Brady (TX)
Congressman Wayne Gilchrest (MD)
Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC)
Congressman Ron Paul (TX)
Congressman Dave Reichert (WA)
Congressman Christopher Shays (CT)
Congressman Mike Turner (OH)
One of the Republicans, Walter Jones, represents Camp LeJeune in North Carolina, one of the largest Marine bases in the country, and one which has borne heavily the sacrifice of the Iraq War.
CQ said of Conyers' hearings:
The anticipated hearing would review more than a year of committee inquiry into such matters as the firing of U.S. attorneys, the leak of the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame and the information provided to Congress in the run-up to the Iraq War.
Kucinich has promised a surprise foreign official as a witness in the hearing. His article focuses on administration claims that Saddam possessed WMD in the run-up to the Iraq war, and that there was a connection between Hussein and 9/11. In addition to many other sources, Kucinich's article relies heavily on the famous Downing Street Memo (DSM), the transcript of a gathering of the British Prime Minister's senior ministers on July 23, 2002. The DSM includes such passages as:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. 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.
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