Some Congressional Democrats Now Push for White House Accountability on False Pre-Iraq War Claims

Interview with U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y. conducted by Richard Hill

Washington continues to analyze the fallout from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby on charges of making false statements, perjury and obstruction of justice, related to his investigation of who in the White House leaked the name of a covert CIA agent. The indictment and subsequent resignation of Libby emboldened Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid to force the full Senate to conduct an unusual closed-door session on Nov. 1. The goal of Senate Democrats was to pressure the majority Republicans to conduct a long-delayed investigation into whether the Bush administration exaggerated and manipulated intelligence to justify the Iraq war. After the two-hour session, an agreement was hammered out to have a bipartisan group of six senators report on the Senate Intelligence Committee's progress on completing the investigation by Nov. 14.

An earlier attempt to push the Fitzgerald investigation into dealing with growing questions about the veracity of pre-war intelligence was made by U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y. Hinchey, joined by 39 members of the House, sent Fitzgerald a Sept. 15 letter requesting an expansion of his investigation to include the administration's false claim that Iraq had sought uranium in the African nation of Niger to build a nuclear weapon. The letter also requests that the special counsel look into whether the administration violated federal law that prohibits making fraudulent statements to Congress.

Between The Lines' Richard Hill spoke with Rep. Hinchey, who explains why he initiated the letter to Fitzgerald and what he hopes will result from the growing pressure on Congress to hold Bush administration officials accountable for a war, that many Americans now believe, was waged on the basis of lies.

Read Hinchey's letter to Fitzgerald online at the congressman's website at www.house.gov/hinchey.

Related links:

"A Cheney-Libby Conspiracy, Or Worse? Reading Between the Lines of the Libby Indictment," by FindLaws, Nov. 4, 2005

"Cheney Promotes Two with Dirty Hands to Take Over for Libby," by Matthew Rothschild, by The Progressive, Nov. 2, 2005

" Indicting America," by Scott Ritter, CommonDreams.org, October 29, 2005

"This War on Terrorism is Bogus: The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination," by Michael Meacher, Sept. 6, 2003 by the Guardian/UK

Project for a New American Century's Letter to President Clinton on Iraq

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