Torturing Bodies and Language, William Cook, counterpunch.org; August 2, 2005

"The details of the Downing Street memos have been circulated far and wide. They determine two important things: Bush intended to take America to war against Iraq regardless of the evidence that could demonstrate its belligerent intent against the United States; and, Bush had undertaken illegal military invasion of Iraq long before he declared open warfare against that country. In the words of Michael Smith, the correspondent who released the memos, "Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq." (Commondreams, 6/23/05) Bush failed to inform the American people that he had taken the country to war even as he prepared a torturous campaign of propagandistic lies to deceive them that he had to use military force to protect them from this enemy. Surely an independent investigation must ensue to provide Americans with the truth; short of that, we are forced to complicity in his crimes."