Two Months Later, Durbin Checks In

Hey! Remember that Downing Street Memo thing? I blogged about it on June 12:

I see via various blogs (BoingBoing and others) that the Downing Street Memo still hasn’t gotten much mainstream media attention. The new website on the Memo has a lot of information on the issues surrounding the document, and also under the Take Action link, you can sign on to the letter to the President that asks the questions originally asked by Sen. John Conyers and 88 other members of Congress on May 5, 2005.

There’s a link to a PDF copy of the actual document, with the signatures in various hands and ink-colors. Then there’s a link to an alphabetized list of the signers. On checking this list, I was highly irked and annoyed that my local representative is not a signer, and neither are the two senators of Illinois!

So I used the handy “send your representative an email” forms, I sent all three of them the following missive. I’ve linked their contact forms to their names.

And I went on to send an email to my elected representatives in Congress:

Dear Representative Bean / Senator Durbin / Senator Obama,

…I understand that 89 of your collegues signed a letter to President Bush, asking several questions about the memo.

I was surprised and disappointed to see that your name is not on the list of signers. Could you please have someone get back to me to explain why you are not participating in this very important dialogue with the administration? It may seem to you that it’s not important to the folks back home, but actually, the young men and women serving and dying in Iraq deserve to know whether they are fighting a war for the wrong reasons. And the families welcoming back the returning veterans and the flag-covered coffins need to know, too.

So I received replies from all three. Gee, it’s just like junior high civics! I feel so validated and proud of my representative democracy!

First in was Melissa Bean, on the same day:

Thank you for contacting me. I appreciate you taking the time to share your views. This is an automated response to certify receipt of your email. Your thoughts are important to me, and I will thoroughly review your message before sending you a more detailed response.

I can’t remember if I eventually received an actual reply – if I did it was boilerplate.

Coming in second in the “reply” stakes, but first in the “thoughtful response” race was Senator Barack Obama, whose email arrived June 19th:

Dear Virginia:

Thank you for contacting me regarding our policy in Iraq, particularly in regard to the faulty intelligence that was presented to the United Nations and Congress on the eve of war. I agree the contents of the Downing Street memo are very troubling, and you can rest assured that I will be looking into this matter very closely. I suspect this subject will remain a topic of heated public debate for some time, and I certainly understand your concerns.

I share your general disappointment at the Administration’s handling of the Iraq war, which has put us in a position where leaving that country risks chaos and staying has immeasurable financial and social costs. An immediate priority for Congress must be to ensure that the American people are getting truthful and accurate information about when and how we will bring our troops home, and that our soldiers, guardsmen and reservists receive all the benefits they are entitled to on their return.

In regard to the faulty intelligence we now know existed before the war, I understand why you and many members of Congress feel as though they were duped by the Administration. I cannot fault anyone — members of Congress or the American citizen — for feeling as though this nation was manipulated into war. It is my hope that this experience will serve as a lesson to the intelligence community and future administrations that they will be held accountable for the information they present to the country and should think twice before letting policy bias override hard intelligence. We should hope that the criticism engendered by the Iraq case will prevent similar mistakes in the future.

Thank you again for your message, Virginia. Please do not hesitate to keep in touch on this or any issue of concern to you.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama
United States Senator

P.S. Our system does not allow direct response to this email. However, if you would like to contact me again, please use the form on the website: http://obama.senate.gov/contact/

So, fine. Some weeks went by, then some more weeks. I forgot about my little experiment in civics. Then yesterday I received my reply from Senator Dick Durbin. Two months late, but at least I’m invited for coffee and donuts if I ever drop by Washington on a Thursday:

Dear Ms. Virginia Gibbs:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the “Downing Street Memo” prepared by British intelligence officials for Prime Minister Tony Blair in July 2002 concerning U.S. preparations for war with Iraq.
The contents of the Downing Street Memo appear to support the claim that President Bush had already decided to invade Iraq at a time when the White House claimed to be seeking a peaceful resolution to the ongoing tension with Iraq. Over the past two years, it has become clear that the main reasons offered for going to war with Iraq – that its possession of weapons of mass destruction and its close ties to global terrorist groups represented an imminent threat to the United States – were gross exaggerations. From the beginning, the Bush Administration discounted any evidence that did not fit with its view that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States.

In June 2005, I joined a number of my colleagues in urging the leadership of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to begin “Phase II” of its investigation into pre-war intelligence failures concerning Iraq. The American people deserve a complete, thorough and honest answer to the national security questions that have been raised regarding our pre-war intelligence efforts. When the concerns were first raised, members of the Intelligence Committee reached a bipartisan agreement to conduct a two-part review of the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, with the first phase focusing on the performance of our nation’s intelligence agencies, followed by an investigation into the Bush Administration’s use of this intelligence. But while the first phase of the Intelligence Committee’s inquiry was completed in the summer of 2004, the promised “Phase II” examination as to whether Administration officials misused intelligence in an effort to build support for invading Iraq has been stalled by the President’s allies on the committee.

The revelations in the Downing Street Memo add further urgency to the need for an investigation into these questions. Any inquiry into pre-war intelligence about Iraq that does not also examine the extent to which intelligence may have been manipulated or misrepresented by Executive Branch policymakers will be incomplete. I will continue to call for answers to the questions that have been raised about the claims that were made by officials of this Administration.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me. Please feel free to stay in touch.
Sincerely,

Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

RJD/rp

P.S. If you are ever visiting Washington, please feel free to join Senator Obama and me at our weekly constituent coffee. When the Senate is in session, we provide coffee and donuts every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. as we hear what is on the minds of Illinoisans and respond to your questions. We would welcome your participation. Please call my D.C. office for more details.

Well, okay, there’s a lot of detail and bringing-up-to-date there for my benefit (Durbin is working for ME in our nation’s capital!), but I still think it’s funny that Durbin essentially stoops to name-dropping to make the little Congressional coffeeklatsch more interesting.