News Release

A “Dodgy Dossier” Instead of a Congressional Debate?

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UN weapons inspectors are reportedly leaving Syria on Saturday.

DANIEL ELLSBERG, ellsbergd1 at gmail.com
Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971. He said today: “What’s urgently needed right now — today, Friday, Saturday and Sunday — is people contacting their Representatives in their home districts and in D.C. demanding, first, that Speaker John Boehner call an emergency session of Congress immediately, and second, that there must be no presidential military attack on Syria without a Congressional resolution authorizing it.” See: “192 Reps., Including 73 Democrats, Call for Debate & Vote Before War With Syria.”

Ellsberg added: “Without Congress back in session by Monday or Tuesday, it may be too late to stop a disastrous intervention by President Obama. A mere letter — no matter now many signers — or individual expressions of dissent by Representatives not in session will not do it: debate, hearings, evidence under oath and a Congressional vote are essential.”

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle at illinois.edu
Boyle is a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and author of Tackling America’s Toughest Questions. He said today: “The test the Dossier [PDF] uses is ‘high confidence’ — but the appropriate standard by the International Court of Justice (in the Corfu Channel case) is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ The Dossier notes that it does not ‘confirm’ the allegations against Syria. So the U.S. intelligence community refuses to ‘confirm’ that the Syrian government did it.

“Kerry claimed in his remarks: ‘We assess that the opposition has not used chemical weapons.’ But Carla del Ponte of the UN commission said they did. See: BBC: ‘UN’s Del Ponte says evidence Syria rebels “used sarin”‘ Similarly, Kerry claimed ‘We intercepted communications involving a senior official…’ But the Wall Street Journal already reported that came from Israeli intelligence.”

ROBERT PARRY, consortnew at aol.com
Parry is founder of ConsortiumNews.com and just wrote “A Dodgy Dossier on Syrian War,” which states: “President George W. Bush misled the world on Iraq’s WMD, but Bush’s bogus case for war at least had details that could be checked, unlike what the Obama administration released Friday on Syria’s alleged chemical attacks — no direct quotes, no photographic evidence, no named sources, nothing but ‘trust us.'” Parry’s books include America’s Stolen Narrative.