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11 congressemen sign 'Fire Boykin' letter
On September 2, 2004, eleven members of Congress, led by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), submitted an official 'Dear Colleague' letter to President Bush calling on the dismissal and firing of Lt. Gen. William Boykin as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence for his anti-Muslim remarks made while in official military uniform.
The letter reads, in part: "One such step…is for you to dismiss Lt. Gen. William Boykin as the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. We were appalled when we learned of the comments General
Boykin had made invoking religion in an inflammatory and inappropriate way while in uniform. Many of us hoped at the time that your administration would act promptly to remove him, but you instead decided to give him the benefit of a thorough investigation. Now that investigation has demonstrated what has been clear to many of us all along – namely that General Boykin should not serve as a high intelligence officer of the U.S.
government. We find his judgment to be severely lacking on many counts. The offense he has given to hundreds of millions of Muslims in the world clearly can only exacerbate many of the problems we face…"
The other signatories included Rep. James McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Martin Meehan (D-MA), Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and
Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA).
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