In a letter sent out today to many of us, US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is decidedly apoplectic over Condoleezza Rice's Senate testimony Wednesday. Seems that Dr. Rice spouted a brand new Bush Administration reason for the War in Iraq.

Writes Senator Boxer, "...at Wednesday's hearing I presented Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with our Iraq petition, signed by more than 107,000 fellow Americans joining together to demand a credible success strategy and timetable for bringing our troops home from Iraq.

I led off my questioning of Dr. Rice by talking about our petition and reiterating our demands, namely that the Bush Administration bring credibility, accountability, and responsibility to their Iraq policy. But at the same time I felt so emboldened by your support during our questioning this week, I continue to be shocked and frustrated by the Administration's answers.

In fact, at the same hearing where I took Dr. Rice to task for the Administration's many false statements and changing justifications for the invasion of Iraq, I was extremely distressed to hear her lay out yet another even broader mission for our soldiers -- to remake the Middle East. Even more unbelievably, Rice insisted that rebuilding the entire Middle East has been the Bush Administration's mission ever since 9/11.

Well that is not what Congress voted for in either the resolution authorizing force in Afghanistan or Iraq, and it is not what the American people believed to be our goal. The Bush Administration is trying to perpetuate yet another classic 'bait and switch,' because Congress and the American people would never have supported an open-ended mission to remake the entire Middle East if the President had made his true intentions known up-front. "
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I've lost track , but this might be the 9th or 10th Bush Administration reason for invading, attacking, occupying and basically destroying Iraq.

I have a suggestion...before we remake the Middle East, let's first remake all those cities and towns destroyed in the wake and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
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Related articles -- Profile of US Senator Barbara Boxer of California
-- Iraq War Made Simple - Statistics as of September 2005
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