Several Iowa antiwar groups said today they’re purchasing newspaper ads to push for an independent investigation of the data used by the Bush administration in its case for the war in Iraq. Dan Pearson is the regional director of the American Friends Service Committee. He says they want to require accountability from our elected officials. He says the Bush administration made its case for war “on combination of false assumptions, intentional exaggerations and carefully crafted deceptions.” Pearson says the deception continues to be a problem as we occupy Iraq. He says we were told the Iraqis would welcome U.S. soldiers as their liberators and says we were misled. He says instead we suffer with the families of servicemen and women whose loved ones are killed every day. Pearson says the newspaper ads ask Iowans and members of Congress to push for the independent investigation.He says “as American citizens we are responsible to hold our elected officials accountable.” Former state senator Elaine Szymoniak spoke too and says it’s costing us one billion dollars a week to fund the effort in Iraq, on top of the billions already spent. She says she thinks about the children in poverty and says the billions spent on Iraq would go far to reduce the number of homeless people in Iraq. Several other groups joined the American Friends Service Committee in the effort, including the Physicians for Social Responsibility.
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