Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a prominent voice calling for the Bush administration to end the war in Iraq, is the featured speaker at a town hall meeting and teach-in on the third anniversary of the Downing Street memo July 23 in Inglewood, Calif.
Waters is a co-founder of the congressional Out of Iraq Caucus, which was formed last month and now has over 60 members.
“I call on the United States to re-examine its role in the Iraq war. I will continue the ongoing discussions regarding the war, including the implications of the Downing Street memo,” she said this week.
The Downing Street memo is the now infamous minutes taken at a July 2002 meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and senior British officials at the prime minister’s office in London regarding President Bush’s determination to go to war. According to the memo, some of Blair’s advisers said it was clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, and that “the intelligence was fixed around the policy.”
“It is time that we demand answers from this administration about the war in Iraq,” Waters said. Noting that over 1,700 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, she said, “We need to reunite our U.S. service members with their families.”
Among those joining Waters at the town hall meeting are Fernando Suarez del Solar, whose son Jesus was killed in the first weeks of the war; Tim Goodrich, co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War; Jane Bright of Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families for Peace; and other elected officials and community leaders.
The July 23 town hall meeting is one of over 200 events scheduled nationwide by at least seven additional members of Congress and a wide variety of other organizations. The Inglewood event is supported by the NAACP, Mexican American Political Association, Office of the Americas, Code Pink, Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and other community groups and peace organizations.
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