Lawmaker Wants Bush and Cheney Censured

Tue Dec 20, 4:53 PM ET

Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., called Tuesday for Congress to censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney, saying they misled lawmakers on the decision to go to war in Iraq.

Conyers, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, introduced resolutions creating a panel to investigate the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war and separate measures censuring Bush and Cheney.

Conyers, releasing a staff report on the buildup to war, cited "substantial evidence the president, the vice president and other high-ranking members of the Bush administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq."

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Ann Marie Hauser said if Conyers "spent half the time condemning terrorism that he does condemning the President of the United States, he would be a credible voice in the war on terror."

In June, Conyers held a public forum to discuss the so-called Downing Street memo. Recounting a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair's national security team, the memo says the Bush administration was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

"The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," one of the participants was quoted as saying at the meeting, which took place just after British officials returned from Washington.

The Sunday Times of London reported that the prewar document was leaked from inside the British government. The White House has rejected the memo's assertions.