400,000 Letters to Congress Seek War Evidence Probe
��Reuters
��Tuesday 22 July 2003
��WASHINGTON - More than 400,000 letters have been sent to members of the U.S. Congress backing a call for an independent investigation into intelligence used by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war, organizers of an online campaign said on Tuesday.
��The campaign, being run by the advocacy group Moveon.org (http://www.moveon.org), is trying to pressure lawmakers to back a bill introduced by Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, that would create a nonpartisan commission to probe the intelligence.
��"People feel like the president is not giving them straight answers and they want to know why the president said what he did in the State of Union address," Eli Pariser, the campaign organizer said in a telephone interview.
��The White House has conceded that U.S. intelligence did not fully endorse a statement he made in his January State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Africa.
��Many Democrats and other critics have accused President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair of exaggerating the threat posed by President Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have been found in Iraq.
��The White House has dismissed such charges, and spokesman Scott McClellan said on Tuesday there had been a "mountain of evidence that outlined a clear and compelling case" for Bush to order U.S. troops to war to oust Saddam in March.
��The initiative to get an inquiry approved by Congress faces an uphill task, with the majority Republicans opposing it.
��Since the petition began about a month ago, the number of lawmakers sponsoring the House bill has almost tripled to 63, said Karen Lightfoot, a minority spokeswoman for the House Committee on Government Reform. Waxman is the top Democrat on that committee.
