Remember when we were told that we should just shut up until September and wait to here what the good general has to say? Funny how things change:
Senior congressional aides said yesterday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration's progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense.
White House officials did not deny making the proposal in informal talks with Congress, but they said yesterday that they will not shield the commanding general in Iraq and the senior U.S. diplomat there from public congressional testimony required by the war-funding legislation President Bush signed in May. "The administration plans to follow the requirements of the legislation," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in response to questions yesterday.
The government belongs to us, not them. It may have been their idea to start this war, but it is the people of this nation who are doing the ones fighting it. Petraeus and Crocker must testify before Congress, and they must do it in full public view. That is nonnegotiable.
UPDATE: Good. The White House has apparently backed down.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
