Here's the part of the
Milbank-Pincus WaPo article that troubles me most (highlighted in lipris' diary):
"Congress was entitled to view the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq before the October 2002 vote. But, as The Washington Post reported last year, no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page executive summary."
In other words, prior to making the decision to send Americans off to die in war, 90% of Congress was happy to stick to the Cliff Notes provided by the White House. The children of their constituents would soon be sent to fight, be injured or killed in a war -- and I won't even go into the chickenhawk service of many of these cowards -- and our elected representatives would not take the time or effort to read the full NIE report? I know government documents are boring, but did they have some more important? (I know, fundraising yes, and collecting "considerations" from lobbyists.)
Every time I think I've hit the full measure of my disgust, I am reminded that this is a resource without limit. I'd like to know which senators and reps read the full report -- I wouldn't be surprised if Pete DeFazio, my great Congressman from Oregon, was one -- and then I'd like send them to the homes of the families of dead and wounded soldiers and marines (and yes, Halliburton contractors) and explain why they couldn't take a few hours to study the issue of war thoroughly. What was so pressing that they would not be sure their decision to help kill American youths was made with the fullest possible information? How is that a 5-page summary was sufficient to let them justify the deaths of other people's children?
If there ever was a case of Congressional malfeasance, of dereliction of a sacred duty, goddamnit, this is it.
