Barbara Lee to Hold Town Hall on Downing Street Memo

Barbara Lee to Hold Town Hall on Downing Street Memo

Panel Will Discuss White House Case for War on 3rd Anniversary of Downing Street Meeting

Who: Congresswoman Barbara Lee will be joined by panelists, including: Daniel Ellsberg, author and lecturer; Steve Cobble, AfterDowningStreet.org; Bill Mitchell, Gold Star Families for Peace, and representatives of Iraq Veterans Against the War

What: Town Hall meeting to discuss the manipulation of pre-war intelligence, the unclassified minutes of the Downing Street meeting, the White House "outing" of CIA agent Valerie Plame and the war in Iraq.

Where: The Grand Lake Theater, 3200 Grand Ave., Oakland, CA 94610

When: Saturday, July 23, 2005, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Background: This week Congresswoman Lee will introduce a Resolution of Inquiry, calling on the Bush administration to release any and all materials related to administration meetings with Britain prior to the Congressional vote to authorize the use force in Iraq.

The Town Hall will be held on the third anniversary of the secret meeting between U.S. and British officials in 2002 whose minutes have come to be known as the "Downing Street Memo." The minutes, along with other leaked memos, raise serious questions as to whether the Bush administration manipulated intelligence data in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. Panelists will address the questions raised by the "Downing Street Memo," as well as the ongoing controversy surrounding White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove and the Bush administration's exposure of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to distract attention from further evidence that claims about Iraq's nuclear ambitions had been deliberately overstated in order to justify invasion.

Over the past two months, 131 Members of Congress have written the President and more than 575,000 people have signed petitions demanding answers from the White House. All of these inquiries have gone unanswered. Because they continue to be met with silence, Members of Congress will now be taking this issue directly to the American people in the hope that the administration will finally be held accountable.

This Town Hall is one of nine being held by Representatives around the nation to call for answers to the serious questions that have come to light about the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq: Representatives John Conyers (D-MI), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Xavier Becerra, (D-CA), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Barney Frank (D-MA), Tom Udall (D-NM) and Maxine Waters (D-CA).