A Meeting Is Not Too Much to Ask

Cindy Sheehan lives in Vacaville, California, near my hometown, and she is one of my constituents. I admire her for her courage. I have joined 37 other Democrats in Congress to urge President Bush to agree to Cindy’s request for a meeting. Given the enormous loss Cindy has suffered, a meeting is not too much to ask.

Cindy is seeking the meeting so she can ask the president why her son, Casey, had to die in Iraq. The President told us that we were going to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that posed a grave threat to our national security. That, of course, turned out not to be true. We have now lost over 1,840 men and women in the fighting in Iraq. These soldiers’ families –- and all Americans –- are owed a real explanation, not just talking points, about how the Administration got everything so tragically wrong.

The Republican majority in Congress has put party before country, refusing to ask any of the hard questions about the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, because those questions could damage the Bush Administration’s already weak credibility. By seeking answers to these questions, Cindy is simply doing the job that Congress should have already begun, but has failed to.

Our nation owes Cindy Sheehan a debt of gratitude for her efforts to uncover the truth.