General, now that you're being confirmed for that higher posting, we have some questions...

Now that you are up for Chief of Staff of the Air Force, we have a few questions for your confirmation hearing, General Moseley.

The American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.

Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 “carefully selected targets” before the war officially started.

1. Dates, please. And places. See, if the places were other than the "no fly" zones, and the date was prior to the Congressional authorization that allowed the use of force in Iraq, then, well, someone (Mr. Bush) acted without the authorization of Congress. That's a bit of a no-no.

2. What were the targets? Just curious.

3. What weapons were used? See, if it was that pesky naplam-based stuff, that's a bit of a moral issue...those bombs are very imprecise, and napalm-like weapons have been banned by much of the civilized world.

That about covers it. #1 there is the really important one, the others are more in the way of sauce on the goose.


See, us pesky American people...we'd really like to know the truth...and we've been calling for an investigation (or for the White House to simply answer some point-blank questions and quit "Clintoning" around with the legalese and non-answers they are famous for), and we really want the facts. Like if there's any truth to the assertation that the President started the war without Congressional approval. You know, it seems "mid-2003", July and thereabouts, is a bit earlier than October. The bill authorizing action in Iraq was proposed on October 7, 2002, and signed into law by Mr. Bush on October 16, 2002, and if I read my Constitution right that means we weren't authorized to bomb Iraq until that time. Unless it's like some dire, imminent emergency or something like that...right? And, well, it wasn't.

We'd like to know the details. If you can't cover all of 'em, we understand, we'd like to talk to your superiors, too.

Thanks.

The American People.

Contact your Congressmen.

Get your Senators involved.

Give them your opinion on the subject.

BBA

Downing Street Memo