Ok I had to run before I could finish my post on Friday. Rep Bud thanks for your comments, I'm glad to see that you are so upset about the memos that you feel the need to post a link to the wingnut national review about this story. What do you think they are going to say? Granted the Milbank Opinion piece is interesting in its disdain, from a source such as he, but I digress. The point still is that he is a Congressman and he has a right to hold a hearing in the House. He has the signatures of 122 House members, and over 250,000 citizens, so I hardly think it is as you characterize it, simply some crazy lefty Congressman. But fear will do that to you I suppose.

Now on to what I wanted to get to on Friday.

First the link.

"Woodward reports that just five days after Sept. 11, President Bush indicated to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that while he had to do Afghanistan first, he was also determined to do something about Saddam Hussein."

Nothing too new here, to people such as me that pretty much know that this is the way things happened. But lets see what else?

"'Gets to a point where in July, the end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. ...Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this.'"

Now THIS is bad! If this is proven to be true, I don't think anyone can explain this away, or make it seem right. More disturbing to me then secretly appropriating money with Congress's knowledge, is the fact that money was secretly taken away from fighting the war in Afghanistan to plan this misguided war plan in Iraq.

Lets close on the words of Tommy Franks, according to Senator Graham:

"In an excerpt read on the program, the senator said Franks told him 'his men and resources were being moved to Iraq, where he felt that our intelligence was shoddy. This admission was coming almost 14 months before the beginning of combat operations in Iraq and only five months after the commencement of combat in Afghanistan.'"

This is wrong. It no doubt cost us valuable time in defeating remaining Taliban and Al Quada fighters in Afghanistan. The source of the attack on our homeland on September 11, 2001.