What's Up With the Downing Street Memo?

[wnes]

What's Up With the Downing Street Memo?

(link (http://www.the-signal.com/News/ViewStory.asp?storyID=7284))

6/4/2005
Diana Sevanian Signal Staff Writer


If I had lost a loved one fighting in Iraq or currently had a soldier over there, I would be enraged over the Downing Street Memo. Even without that link, I am fuming about this formerly "extremely sensitive"� and now public memorandum.

In case you're unaware, the Downing Street Memo is the recently leaked minutes from a 2002 British government meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior national security team. It pertains to their intelligence analysts' concerns over President Bush's determination to topple Saddam Hussein -- despite "wobbly evidence"� that Iraq posed a serious threat to its neighbors or to the United States.

Penned by top Blair aide Matthew Rycroft almost one year before we gave Iraq the shock and awe no one will ever forget, the top-secret memo spoke of how that cause for war would have to be scripted -- because a desire for regime change was just not a good enough reason to send in the troops.

Per the minutes, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw concurred that Bush's case to go to war was slim.

"Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran,"� Straw said.

The memo also told of how Bush's decision to strike was already set prior to his presenting the plan to Congress; that the National Security Council lacked patience with the United Nations' route and had no zeal for releasing information on Iraq's regime record; and that there was "little discussion"� in Washington to plan an aftermath to military action.

Here's the kicker: The former head of British Secret Intelligence Services, Richard Dearlove (who had just gotten back from meetings in Washington, D.C.), was sure Bush wanted to "remove Saddam Hussein through military action justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. ... But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy."

Facts "fixed"?

Isn't that like manufacturing evidence?

How do you explain that to kids who signed on to fight evildoers and secure their WMDs, only to come home in flag-draped boxes to a nation where, according to a recent Gallup poll, almost 60 percent of its citizens now feel the war was a total mistake?

How do you explain it to grieving parents who thought their sons and daughters died in a war where military power had been used only as the absolute last resort -- like Bush said it would be?

While Blair's cabinet has acknowledged the authenticity of the memo, White House spokesman Scott McClellan stiffly discounted it, saying "there is no need to respond"� to it.

I am not surprised at that reaction.

Now for another disturbing twist: This whole memo story has largely gone to the back burner of our nation's consciousness. Although it was first divulged in Great Britain more than one month ago, you just aren't hearing or reading much about it here.

Someone who is quite vocal about it, however, is Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who, along with 88 other Congressional Democrats, has formally requested answers from President Bush.

To date, no reply.

So what does this silence say?

It says, ignore the issue and the people will forget about it.

Further, it says that "we the people" do not matter; what matters is preserving the cold-steely dogma that drives this human meat-grinding machine our leaders have set into voracious motion.

Senior statesman Conyers feels the mainstream media have ignored the story and helped let the president off the hook.

Why this reticence in reporting? After all, the "liberal"� media is considered by many to be a mongrel that'll bite any bone if it makes the administration look bad.

I know some folks are saying, "They're not writing about it because it is a non-issue. We are in a war now. That's what matters."�

Others, like McClellan, will just deny its validity.

But I believe this paucity of front-page attention is more complex.
Possibly some journalists are so burned up with -- or burned out by -- this historic debacle that they've chosen to stay mum and see what unfolds. Perhaps they feel there's too much fresh residue from the Newsweek and Dan Rather incidents to stick their necks out.

Maybe a pervasive numbness has enveloped many of us. Each day the horrific news from Iraq, as well as the White House PR spin on it, give people more reason to feel sick, worried, mad, misguided and hopeless.

It could also be that some people who have voiced their concerns over this cursed Pandora's Box and the fact that we have no exit strategy from it -- just a new generation of dying soldiers and hemorrhaging pockets -- are weary from speaking out and being excoriated. After all, when they do voice their opinions, the "real"� patriots of this nation viciously label them cowardly, liberal, un-American, gun-absconding, fetus-killing, commie-wacko traitors who deserve to be deported.

Speaking of communism, or totalitarianism or socialism, or any "ism"� that strays from what this nation's founding government was supposed to be about, how far off are we from being under what many would consider an aberrant regime if we cannot depend on straight answers from the top?

Democrats are not the only folks fired up over this situation. Republicans are coming forward, too. Count in Paul Craig Roberts, a conservative Republican and syndicated columnist.

A Hoover Institution senior fellow and former Reagan Administration economic policy cabinet member, Roberts says, "George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America's reputation."

In his recent column, "A Reputation in Tatters,"� Roberts writes that our dismal standing will likely prevail unless drastic measures are taken -- including the same penalty served on our former commander-in-chief.

"As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush's far more serious lies. Bush's lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, injured and maimed tens of thousands more, devastated a country, destroyed America's reputation, caused one billion Muslims to hate America, ruined our alliances with Europe, created a police state at home, and squandered $300 billion dollars and counting,"� he said.

So, Mr. President. What about a bona fide, non-scripted face-the-nation about the memo and this war? This is a democracy and you are supposed to listen to our concerns - and responsibly address them.

Validate our right to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

You owe us that, Mr. Bush.

You especially owe it to the more than 1,600 soldiers who have died in Iraq, those still serving there, those bound to go, and all the people who love them.

[mc mark]

why do you hate america wnes?

[wnes]

Originally posted by mc mark
why do you hate america wnes?

"After all, when they do voice their opinions, the "real"� patriots of this nation viciously label them cowardly, liberal, un-American, gun-absconding, fetus-killing, commie-wacko traitors who deserve to be deported."

[ROXTXIA]

That's just it.

If the administration lets it alone, it may die a quiet death.

This whole war was cooked up; 9/11 gave it "justification" (despite Saddam having nothing to do with that crime, bad as he is), but Bush had his eye on this war with Iraq from the very beginning of his first term. His first week in office, he held a meeting on the matter.

And yet the media is so afraid of Emperor George that the story is buried. You know FOX won't cover it. CNN might not mention it because FOX and others will scream "liberal media bias" if you try to report the news (where was the liberal media bias during CLinton and his zipper problem?)

Anyway, I thought someone should reply to this.

[Hippieloser]

You lost the election, get over it. ;)

[flamingmoe]

Today, from Sen. Kennedy

"The contents of the Downing Street Minutes confirm that the Bush Administration was determined to go to war in Iraq, regardless of whether there was any credible justification for doing so. The Administration distorted and misrepresented the intelligence in its attempt to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorists of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and with weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have.

"In addition, the Downing Street Minutes also confirm what has long been obvious that the timing of the war was linked to the 2002 Congressional elections, and that the Administration's planning for post-war Iraq was incompetent in all its aspects. The current continuing crisis is a direct result of that incompetence."

"Many of you have worked hard for the American people, the media and those in government to speak out about the Downing Street Minutes and the Iraq war. You can join me in speaking out as well.

"The policy of "shoot first, ask questions later" took us into an unjustified war, and without a clear concept of what 'winning the war' actually means.

"President Bush constantly talks about the 'progress' that is being made in Iraq against the insurgency, but he's looking for good news with a microscope. All anyone can see is 'Mission Mis-accomplished' and the continuing losses of American lives, the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis, the torture scandal, and the ominous decline in our nation's moral authority in the world community.

We know the Administration had been planning to invade Iraq for many months before the invasion actually began. We know the Administration twisted the intelligence to make the facts fit their plan. We know that the Administration never really intended to give the U.N. weapons inspectors a reasonable chance to succeed. The Downing Street Minutes demonstrate that the Administration knew their case for war was paper thin, and that in order to go into war with the support of our allies, we had to demonstrate some willingness to go along with the UN inspection process. But the Administration continued to misuse its intelligence, distort the facts and pay only lip-service to the UN's role in disarming Iraq.

"We never should have gone to war for ideological reasons driven by politics and based on manipulated intelligence. The Downing Street Minutes provide even more proof that this is exactly what happened on Iraq. The Administration's dishonesty, lack of candor, and lack of planning have brought us to where we are today, with American soldiers dying, Iraqi civilians living in constant fear, and with no clearer picture of our strategy for victory in Iraq than when we started."

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Kennedy_speaks_out_on_Downing_Street_Memo_Twisted_intelligence_Distorted_f_0607.html


READ THE MEMO HERE AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/The_Secret_Downing_Street_Memo_as_released_by_the_Sunday_Times_of_Lon_0607.html

[ima_drummer2k]

Originally posted by wnes
After all, when they do voice their opinions, the "real"� patriots of this nation viciously label them cowardly, liberal, un-American, gun-absconding, fetus-killing, commie-wacko traitors who deserve to be deported.
I know. I do that all the time.

[mc mark]

The Downing Street Memo reported that in a July 23, 2002 meeting between Prime Minister Blair and his war cabinet, attendees of the meeting discussed the fact that President Bush had already made up his mind to attack Iraq. According to the minutes of the meeting:

“There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action.”

Yet, as the record below proves, President Bush claimed over and over after July 23rd until the war began that he had not made up his mind.

Bush: “Of course, I haven’t made up my mind we’re going to war with Iraq.” [10/1/02]

Bush:“Hopefully, we can do this peacefully – don’t get me wrong. And if the world were to collectively come together to do so, and to put pressure on Saddam Hussein and convince him to disarm, there’s a chance he may decide to do that. And war is not my first choice, don’t – it’s my last choice.” [11/7/02]

Bush: “This is our attempt to work with the world community to create peace. And the best way for peace is for Mr. Saddam Hussein to disarm. It’s up to him to make his decision.” [12/4/02]

Bush: “You said we’re headed to war in Iraq – I don’t know why you say that. I hope we’re not headed to war in Iraq. I’m the person who gets to decide, not you. I hope this can be done peacefully.” [12/31/02]

Bush: “First of all, you know, I’m hopeful we won’t have to go war, and let’s leave it at that.” [1/2/03]

Bush: “But Saddam Hussein is – he’s treated the demands of the world as a joke up to now, and it was his choice to make. He’s the person who gets to decide war and peace.” [2/7/03]

Bush:“I’ve not made up our mind about military action. Hopefully, this can be done peacefully.” [3/6/03]

Bush: “I want to remind you that it’s his choice to make as to whether or not we go to war. It’s Saddam’s choice. He’s the person that can make the choice of war and peace.” [3/6/03]

Bush: “We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm peacefully, he will be disarmed by force.” [3/8/03]

Bush: “Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it.” [3/17/03]

[tigermission1]

Well, this is exactly why I laugh out loud whenever I am told of how our mass media is "liberal" and "anti-Bush" or even "anti-Clinton" or any other leader in power of either party.

The media has become part of the elite class in this country, and they work with them, not against them. They can't be trusted, none of them.

Tell me who owns our news networks and you will have your answer as to whom they belong. They are part of the elite class, they are not there to look out for our benefits/interests, only to brainwash us and misinform us to get a favorable reaction.

Thankfully, according to a recent poll, nearly half of Americans don't trust the media. So that tells me Americans are not as easily fooled as our politicians would like us to believe. I just think that the real tragedy of our political system is that voters are left with no real genuine choice, only the ability to choose whom they think is the "lesser of two evils". It is a real tragedy in such a fine plutocracy like ours.

When two supposedly "opposing" candidates had come from the same elite institution like Yale, and attended the same "secret" society, the Skulls and Bones, that just tells you how "diverse" the political arena really is.

[No Worries]

This one of my favorite GWB quotes ...

"You said we're headed to war in Iraq - I don't know why you say that. I hope we're not headed to war in Iraq. I'm the person who gets to decide, not you. I hope this can be done peacefully." [12/31/02]

[mc mark]

Originally posted by No Worries


"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier – so long as I'm the dictator."

[edit] That little joke should have been a clue.

[SWTsig]

$100 say neither TJ, texxx, or basso reply with a meaningful post in this thread.

that being said, it's frustrating to see all the corruption out there. power corrupts almost everyone, especially those born with it. people who refuse to beleive that or completely ignorant.

[Sishir Chang]

I think the sad thing about why this memo isn't getting much play is that nothing about it is a surprise.

Those who oppose the war pretty much knew that the Admin. was planning on going to war from the start. Those who supported the war also knew the same thing and accept that the Admin. had to put on a diplomatic show for the UN.

[glynch]

I think the sad thing about why this memo isn't getting much play is that nothing about it is a surprise.

This is true.

Now we have an additional story that Bush started the war before he even got that approval from Congress, based on the "fixed" intelligence. I am referring to the increased offensive bombing of Iraqi defenses that went way beyond any possible enforcement of the no fly zone.

Many war supporters just don't care if Bush acted illegally by starting the war before getting Congressional approval. Their faith and primary commitment seems to be to Bush and the GOP electoral ambitiions.

However, I do think the continued decline in what is now a decreasingly minority opinion who think the war was worthwhile reflects that there are some previous war supportes who do care about Bush's deceptions.

[rhester]

Originally posted by tigermission1
Well, this is exactly why I laugh out loud whenever I am told of how our mass media is "liberal" and "anti-Bush" or even "anti-Clinton" or any other leader in power of either party.

The media has become part of the elite class in this country, and they work with them, not against them. They can't be trusted, none of them.

Tell me who owns our news networks and you will have your answer as to whom they belong. They are part of the elite class, they are not there to look out for our benefits/interests, only to brainwash us and misinform us to get a favorable reaction.

Thankfully, according to a recent poll, nearly half of Americans don't trust the media. So that tells me Americans are not as easily fooled as our politicians would like us to believe. I just think that the real tragedy of our political system is that voters are left with no real genuine choice, only the ability to choose whom they think is the "lesser of two evils". It is a real tragedy in such a fine plutocracy like ours.

When two supposedly "opposing" candidates had come from the same elite institution like Yale, and attended the same "secret" society, the Skulls and Bones, that just tells you how "diverse" the political arena really is.

Exactly-

Elites don't leave their future to chance.

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." -Franklin D. Roosevelt

[wnes]

The Downing Street Memo Story Won't Die
(link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060700474_pf.html))
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 7, 2005; 9:18 AM

More than a month after its publication, the so-called Downing Street Memo remains among the top 10 most viewed articles (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-1-1642964,00.html) on The Times of London site.

It's not hard to see why this remarkable document, published in The Times on May 1 (and reported in this column on May 3 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/02/03/AR2005040701070.html)), continues to attract reader interest around the world, especially with British Prime Minister Tony Blair visiting Washington Tuesday.

The July 2002 memo (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html), labeled "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY," reports the views of "C," code name for Richard Dearlove, the chief of British intelligence. Dearlove had just retuned from a visit with Bush administration officials eight months before the war in Iraq began.

"Military action was now seen as inevitable," Dearlove told Blair and his senior defense policy advisers. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

A separate secret briefing paper for the meeting said Britain and the United States had to "create" conditions to justify a war.

The story attracted some news coverage in the United States, but not much. Last month, the Chicago Tribune concluded that "the Downing Street memo story has proven to be something of a dud (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0505170052may17,1,5984426.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=3&cset=true) in the United States.

"The White House has denied the premise of the memo, the American media have reacted slowly to it and the public generally seems indifferent to the issue or unwilling to rehash the bitter prewar debate over the reasons for the war," wrote reporters Stephen J. Hedges and Mark Silva.

Still the story won't go away, thanks to the attention it gets on the Internet.

"I think it's a . . . profoundly important document (http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/06-05/06-02-05/a01lo167.htm) that raises stunning issues here at home," Sen. John Kerry told a Massachusetts audience last week. "And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."

Kerry promised to raise the issue when he returned to Washington this week.

On Sunday, "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8062380) asked Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman about the memo. Mehlman said "that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then."

When Russert noted that the authenticity of the report has not been discredited, Mehlman said "I believe that the findings of the report, the fact that the intelligence was somehow fixed have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it."

Mehlman referred specifically to the Senate Intelligence Committee's July 2004 report (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/senateiraqreport.pdf) on pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which concluded that the Bush administration's findings were "overstated" and "not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting." The report attributed the mistakes to "group think" in the intelligence community, not to pressure from the administration officials.

The Post's Walter Pincus (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/12/AR2005051201857.html) reported on the memo in a May 13 story, noting that Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) had written a letter to President Bush, signed by 88 congressional Democrats, demanding an explanation.

A week later, The Times of London reported on the Conyers letter (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,2-523-1622378,00.html) and quoted the Michigan congressman as saying, "I deplore the fact that our media have been so reticent on the question of whether there was a secret planning of a war for which neither the Congress nor the American people had given permission."

"We have The Sunday Times to thank for this very important activity. It reminds me of Watergate, which started off as a tiny little incident reported in The Washington Post. I think that the interest of many citizens is picking up," Conyers said.

So is journalistic interest. Over the weekend, Charles Hanley, a special correspondent for the Associated Press, linked The Times's Downing Street memo to U.N. Ambassador nominee John Bolton's effort to get a U.N. weapons inspector fired.

"Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved, " Hanley said in a story published this weekend by The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5052310,00.html) in London and carried by Canadian TV (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1117920124226_37/?hub=World).

The dismissal, Hanley says, was part of the Bush administration effort to control intelligence findings on Iraq.

Jose Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), "had to go" according to one of Bolton's aides, because he was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. The course of action favored by Bustani might "have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war," Hanley wrote.

Bustani was relieved of his position in April 2002 at an OPCW meeting attended by only one third of the group's member nations, according to the AP report.

"The Iraq connection to the OPCW affair comes as fresh evidence surfaces that the Bush administration was intent from early on to pursue military and not diplomatic action against Saddam Hussein's regime," Hanley wrote. He cited the Times's original Downing Street memo story (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1592904,00.html), which reported that Blair told Bush that Britain would support a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq at a meeting in Crawford, Tex., in mid-April 2002.

"Two weeks later, Bustani was ousted, with British help," Hanley wrote.

Far from being a dud, the Downing Street Memo may generate more stories to come.

[mc mark]

From today's NYT

Bush and Blair Deny 'Fixed' Iraq Reports
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON, June 7 - President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain presented a united front on Tuesday against a recently disclosed British government memorandum that said in July 2002 that American intelligence was being "fixed" around the policy of removing Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

"There's nothing farther from the truth," Mr. Bush said in his first public comments about the so-called Downing Street memo, which has created anger among the administration's critics who see it as evidence that the president was intent to go to war with Iraq earlier than the White House has said.

"Look, both of us didn't want to use our military," Mr. Bush added. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Mr. Blair, standing at Mr. Bush's side in a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House, said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all."

The statements contradicted assertions in the memorandum, which was first disclosed by The Sunday Times of London on May 1 and which records the minutes of a meeting of Mr. Blair's senior policy advisers more than half a year before the war with Iraq began.

The contents of the memo have dogged Mr. Blair, who has taken years of political criticism at home for joining Mr. Bush in the Iraq war and has come to Washington on his first trip since his re-election in May expressly to seek support on his plans for more aid to Africa and for fighting global warming.

Mr. Blair, generally unsmiling through the 25-minute news conference, went home after dinner at the White House on Tuesday night with much less than he had wanted.

The two leaders pledged to cancel the debts of 27 of the world's poorest nations to the World Bank and the African Development Bank, although no deal has yet been reached. And as expected, Mr. Bush announced that the White House would release $674 million in aid to Africa, mostly for food aid to Ethiopia and Eritrea, drawn from money already appropriated by Congress.

But Mr. Blair failed to persuade Mr. Bush to agree to a doubling of aid to Africa, to $25 billion, from the world's richest nations, or to close the gap with the administration on policy toward climate change. Mr. Blair has cited the two areas as top foreign policy priorities.

Mr. Bush defended his decision not to join with Mr. Blair by repeatedly saying that the United States has already tripled aid to Africa to $3.2 billion during his administration. But he promised, "We'll do more down the road." The United States has one of the lowest levels of aid among developed countries in the share of national income it gives, or 16 cents to each $100.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair also appeared far apart on the issue of global warming - "I think everyone knows there are different perspectives on this issues," the prime minister acknowledged - as the president sidestepped a question about whether climate change was man-made. Instead Mr. Bush reiterated his longstanding position that the development of new technology was the best way to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Such differences were pushed aside in the public formalities of the news conference, where the two leaders seemed happy to have survived their re-elections after the war in Iraq.

"Glad you're here," Mr. Bush said to Mr. Blair. "Congratulations on your great victory. It was a landmark victory, and I'm really thrilled to be able to work with you to be able to spread freedom and peace over the next years."

The two expressed common ground most emphatically on the Downing Street memo, which was written by Matthew Rycroft, a top aide to Mr. Blair.

In particular, it reports that Sir Richard Dearlove, the chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, had been in talks in Washington and had told other senior British officials that Mr. Bush "wanted to remove" Mr. Hussein "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D.," or weapons of mass destruction.

"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," Sir Richard was reported in the memo to have told his colleagues.

Since the disclosure by The Sunday Times, 89 Democrats in the House of Representatives have written to the White House to ask if the memorandum accurately reflected the administration's thinking at the time, eight months before the American-led invasion of Iraq began. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, has said there is "no need" to respond to the letter.

In his comments at the news conference, Mr. Bush noted of the memorandum that "they dropped it out in the middle of his race," indicating that he thought it had been made public last month to hurt Mr. Blair's chances for re-election.

Mr. Blair, who spoke frequently about the memorandum during his campaign, said it was written before the United States and Britain went to the United Nations seeking a resolution to justify military action in Iraq.

"Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me," Mr. Blair said.

The White House has always insisted that Mr. Bush did not make the decision to invade Iraq until after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the administration's case to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, which relied heavily on claims, now discredited, that Iraq had illicit weapons. But as early as Nov. 21, 2001, Mr. Bush directed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to begin a review of what could be done to oust Mr. Hussein.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/international/08prexy.html?

[pirc1]

Does anyone believe Bush and Blair stand there and say "Ya we lied to everyone to start the war?".

Originally posted by mc mark
From today's NYT

Bush and Blair Deny 'Fixed' Iraq Reports
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON, June 7 - President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain presented a united front on Tuesday against a recently disclosed British government memorandum that said in July 2002 that American intelligence was being "fixed" around the policy of removing Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

"There's nothing farther from the truth," Mr. Bush said in his first public comments about the so-called Downing Street memo, which has created anger among the administration's critics who see it as evidence that the president was intent to go to war with Iraq earlier than the White House has said.

"Look, both of us didn't want to use our military," Mr. Bush added. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Mr. Blair, standing at Mr. Bush's side in a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House, said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all."

The statements contradicted assertions in the memorandum, which was first disclosed by The Sunday Times of London on May 1 and which records the minutes of a meeting of Mr. Blair's senior policy advisers more than half a year before the war with Iraq began.

The contents of the memo have dogged Mr. Blair, who has taken years of political criticism at home for joining Mr. Bush in the Iraq war and has come to Washington on his first trip since his re-election in May expressly to seek support on his plans for more aid to Africa and for fighting global warming.

Mr. Blair, generally unsmiling through the 25-minute news conference, went home after dinner at the White House on Tuesday night with much less than he had wanted.

The two leaders pledged to cancel the debts of 27 of the world's poorest nations to the World Bank and the African Development Bank, although no deal has yet been reached. And as expected, Mr. Bush announced that the White House would release $674 million in aid to Africa, mostly for food aid to Ethiopia and Eritrea, drawn from money already appropriated by Congress.

But Mr. Blair failed to persuade Mr. Bush to agree to a doubling of aid to Africa, to $25 billion, from the world's richest nations, or to close the gap with the administration on policy toward climate change. Mr. Blair has cited the two areas as top foreign policy priorities.

Mr. Bush defended his decision not to join with Mr. Blair by repeatedly saying that the United States has already tripled aid to Africa to $3.2 billion during his administration. But he promised, "We'll do more down the road." The United States has one of the lowest levels of aid among developed countries in the share of national income it gives, or 16 cents to each $100.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair also appeared far apart on the issue of global warming - "I think everyone knows there are different perspectives on this issues," the prime minister acknowledged - as the president sidestepped a question about whether climate change was man-made. Instead Mr. Bush reiterated his longstanding position that the development of new technology was the best way to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Such differences were pushed aside in the public formalities of the news conference, where the two leaders seemed happy to have survived their re-elections after the war in Iraq.

"Glad you're here," Mr. Bush said to Mr. Blair. "Congratulations on your great victory. It was a landmark victory, and I'm really thrilled to be able to work with you to be able to spread freedom and peace over the next years."

The two expressed common ground most emphatically on the Downing Street memo, which was written by Matthew Rycroft, a top aide to Mr. Blair.

In particular, it reports that Sir Richard Dearlove, the chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, had been in talks in Washington and had told other senior British officials that Mr. Bush "wanted to remove" Mr. Hussein "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D.," or weapons of mass destruction.

"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," Sir Richard was reported in the memo to have told his colleagues.

Since the disclosure by The Sunday Times, 89 Democrats in the House of Representatives have written to the White House to ask if the memorandum accurately reflected the administration's thinking at the time, eight months before the American-led invasion of Iraq began. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, has said there is "no need" to respond to the letter.

In his comments at the news conference, Mr. Bush noted of the memorandum that "they dropped it out in the middle of his race," indicating that he thought it had been made public last month to hurt Mr. Blair's chances for re-election.

Mr. Blair, who spoke frequently about the memorandum during his campaign, said it was written before the United States and Britain went to the United Nations seeking a resolution to justify military action in Iraq.

"Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me," Mr. Blair said.

The White House has always insisted that Mr. Bush did not make the decision to invade Iraq until after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the administration's case to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, which relied heavily on claims, now discredited, that Iraq had illicit weapons. But as early as Nov. 21, 2001, Mr. Bush directed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to begin a review of what could be done to oust Mr. Hussein.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/international/08prexy.html? ;)

[DaDakota]

Come on,

Everyone already knows this.......

DD

[No Worries]

"There's nothing farther from the truth," Mr. Bush said in his first public comments about the so-called Downing Street memo, which has created anger among the administration's critics who see it as evidence that the president was intent to go to war with Iraq earlier than the White House has said.

"Look, both of us didn't want to use our military," Mr. Bush added. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

I am not a crook.

I have never had sex with that woman.

[basso]

Originally posted by No Worries
"There's nothing farther from the truth," Mr. Bush said in his first public comments about the so-called Downing Street memo, which has created anger among the administration's critics who see it as evidence that the president was intent to go to war with Iraq earlier than the White House has said.

"Look, both of us didn't want to use our military," Mr. Bush added. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

I am not a crook.

I have never had sex with that woman.

finally! a democrat gets the nixon/ clinton parallel!

[No Worries]

Originally posted by basso
finally! a democrat gets the nixon/ clinton parallel!
Make that the Nixon/Clinton/GWB parallel.

Throw in the Gulf of Tonkin incident and we can bring LBJ to the party.

Throw in the Iran/Contra affair and make way for Reagan and Bush Sr..

Pitiful as it seems, this leaves Carter as the last President standing in recent memory.

[mc mark]

Originally posted by basso
finally! a democrat gets the nixon/ clinton parallel!

yeah well no one died when Clinton and Nixon lied.

;)

hey basso I like the sig! Did you see the show recently?

[No Worries]

Originally posted by mc mark
yeah well no one died when Clinton and Nixon lied.
Didn't Nixon operatives have a hit list? I vaguely recall some such, even though it was not a likely avenue Nixon would have pursued domestically.

[basso]

Originally posted by mc mark
yeah well no one died when Clinton and Nixon lied.

;)

hey basso I like the sig! Did you see the show recently?

no, just fit's my life these days...

Aways Be Closing! Put me on the Cadillac board!!!

[RocketMan Tex]

Originally posted by No Worries
Didn't Nixon operatives have a hit list?

They had an enemies list. Those on the list were marked for surveillance, but not murder.

[Saint Louis]

Originally posted by No Worries
"There's nothing farther from the truth," Mr. Bush said in his first public comments about the so-called Downing Street memo, which has created anger among the administration's critics who see it as evidence that the president was intent to go to war with Iraq earlier than the White House has said.

"Look, both of us didn't want to use our military," Mr. Bush added. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

I am not a crook.

I have never had sex with that woman.

Read my lips, no new taxes.

I can't recall.

[mc mark]

From today's WaPo

Downing Street Memo Watch

A potpourri of Downing Street Memo items:

Philippe Naughton writes from London in the Times Online: "It is not that often, we have to admit, that an item posted one night on Times Online is still getting hundreds of thousands of hits six weeks later, especially when what bloggers like to call 'the mainstream media' have largely ignored its existence.

"But that is what happened to the now infamous secret Downing Street memo, posted on the site on May 1 alongside a story by Michael Smith of The Sunday Times. And if the document has taken on a life of its own it is largely because of the bloggers and their web-savvy allies on the US Left."

A red-state paper that endorsed Bush comes out for disclosure. Here's today's Houston Chronicle editorial : "Intelligence agents' observations can be inaccurate. The head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, erroneously thought the case for Iraqi WMD was a slam dunk. But the Downing Street memo accurately foresees the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the administration's attempts to link Saddam to al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction -- links that were found after the invasion not to exist. The memo's observation that U.S. intelligence would be shaped to policy might be mistaken, but the administration did wind up using flawed analysis to justify its war policy to the American people. . . .

"In the interest of the nation and the administration, the source and content of the Downing Street Memo need to be fully explained."

Former New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent tells Terrence Smith on PBS that he is convinced that the American media is pursuing other stories on the memo. "My . . . thought is that something is coming, that it is a story that calls for a great deal of reporting, and sometimes the absence of something in the newspaper doesn't mean that it's not being reported, but they're waiting until they have it right. I hope that's the case.

"TERENCE SMITH: Do you have any evidence that it is?

"DANIEL OKRENT: No."

Allegre , who keeps a diary on the liberal Daily Kos blog, reprints the e-mail she got in reply to her note about the Downing Street memo from John Walcott, Washington bureau chief for Knight Ridder newspapers:

Writes Walcott: "Knight Ridder was, in fact, the first American news organization (more than a week before our local paper here in Washington) to write about the Downing Street memo and the light it shed on the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq.

"And almost six months before the memo was written, in early February 2002, we reported that the President had decided to oust Saddam Hussein and ordered his advisors to begin preparing plans for doing so. To read this and all our other Iraq coverage (we were the only news organization to consistently challenge the administration's assertions about Iraq's WMD programs and ties to al Qaida, go to http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/ and click on the Iraq intelligence and preparations for war buttons. Please feel free to share that link with anyone else you think might be interested."

Also on the Daily Kos blog, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), author of this petition , writes: "[O]n Thursday, a week from today, I will be holding a hearing with my Democratic colleagues to begin to hear evidence about the [Downing Street Memo]. We will have a number of witnesses, including Joe Wilson, who frequent readers here already know is a WMD expert and former Ambassador; Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA analyst; Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq; and John Bonifaz, a renowned Constitutional attorney. At the conclusion of the hearing, we will go to Lafayette Park and I will personally deliver your signatures to the White House.

"This hearing is just one step in an investigation that I am commencing that will literally span the Atlantic. I am in touch with British officials and former U.S. intelligence officials and I am determined to get to the truth."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/10/BL2005061001224_4.html

[mc mark]

From today's Houston Chronicle editorial page

MEMORANDUM OF INTENT

The Bush administration should explain why Americans should not be disturbed by a secret British memo on the runup to the Iraq War
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Weeks after it dominated front pages in Europe, the so-called Downing Street Memo finally has bored its way into the U.S. press. The 2002 document describes comments by Britain's intelligence chief, Richard Dearlove, concerning talks with U.S. officials eight months before the invasion of Iraq. Identifying Dearlove as "C," the leaked memo summarizes his report: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Intelligence agents' observations can be inaccurate. The head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, erroneously thought the case for Iraqi WMD was a slam dunk. But the Downing Street memo accurately foresees the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the administration's attempts to link Saddam to al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction — links that were found after the invasion not to exist. The memo's observation that U.S. intelligence would be shaped to policy might be mistaken, but the administration did wind up using flawed analysis to justify its war policy to the American people.

An independent panel investigated the use of U.S. intelligence before the Iraq War. It concluded that President Bush and his administration did not manipulate the intelligence. The panel supported the administration's claim that it relied on faulty intelligence.

In a Tuesday press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush responded directly to the Downing Street Memo's content for the first time, saying, "there's nothing further than the truth." He added that his administration had worked hard to avoid sending troops to war. "Nobody," Bush said, "wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Like Blair, Bush reasonably points out that Saddam would never have changed his spots and, left to his own devices, would have endangered his neighbors and U.S. interests. But that argument, absent WMD and terrorist ties, was not what moved Congress to authorize military action.

In the interest of the nation and the administration, the source and content of the Downing Street Memo need to be fully explained.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/3219162

[mc mark]

Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’
Michael Smith


MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

“US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia,” the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality “would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation”.

The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday Times.

The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.

“It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,” the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be “most unlikely” to obtain the legal justification they needed.

The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.

The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it.

There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month’s publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to “the DSM” on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media.

The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking if it was true — as Dearlove told the July meeting — that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” in Washington.

The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that “the facts were not fixed in any shape or form at all”.

John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy. He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they agreed to “manufacture” the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war.

He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the American former ambassador who went to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons programme.

Frustrated at the refusal by the White House to respond to their letter, the congressmen have set up a website — www.downingstreetmemo.com — to collect signatures on a petition demanding the same answers.

Conyers promised to deliver it to Bush once it reached 250,000 signatures. By Friday morning it already had more than 500,000 with as many as 1m expected to have been obtained when he delivers it to the White House on Thursday.

AfterDowningStreet.org, another website set up as a result of the memo, is calling for a congressional committee to consider whether Bush’s actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for impeachment.

It has been flooded with visits from people angry at what they see as media self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have attracted more than 1m hits a day.

Democrats.com, another website, even offered $1,000 (about £550) to any journalist who quizzed Bush about the memo’s contents, although the Reuters reporter who asked the question last Tuesday was not aware of the reward and has no intention of claiming it.

The complaints of media self-censorship have been backed up by the ombudsmen of The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Public Radio, who have questioned the lack of attention the minutes have received from their organisations.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1650822,00.html

[basso]

An independent panel investigated the use of U.S. intelligence before the Iraq War. It concluded that President Bush and his administration did not manipulate the intelligence.

'nuff said.

[mc mark]

'nuff said.

http://naiv.us/io/files/macros/you%20shall%20DIE/head_in_sand.jpg

[FranchiseBlade]

'nuff said.
Of course that was based on the evidence they had at the time. Now that reliable evidence has come out that says otherwise who knows what they would have found.

[rhester]

Make that the Nixon/Clinton/GWB parallel.

Throw in the Gulf of Tonkin incident and we can bring LBJ to the party.

Throw in the Iran/Contra affair and make way for Reagan and Bush Sr..

Pitiful as it seems, this leaves Carter as the last President standing in recent memory.

If the aboved named Presidents turn out in the end to be the bad guys who helped bring about the globalization and destruction of this republic (The United States of America) we are one group of blind-sheep, lazy, complacent, materialistic, self centered, me-first citizens.

Why do we harp about one party or the other while the nation goes down the drain? The way Republicans and Democrats have been solving all our problems for the last 75 yrs. we shouldn't have any problems left to solve.

But we are about 26 trillion dollars in debt as a nation and the paper currency is under increased pressure to inflate like a wild fire, and most households need more than two wage earners now days to even survive and personal debt is the highest it has ever been.

Being neck deep in Iraq and blustering about Iran and North Korea just make me glad the politicians have everything under control.

[No Worries]

Bring back that Jimmy Carter!!! We were fools for sending him home after one term.

[flamingmoe]

'nuff said.

Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’
Michael Smith

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1650822,00.html

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

“US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia,” the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality “would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation”.

The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday Times.

The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.

“It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,” the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be “most unlikely” to obtain the legal justification they needed.

The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.

The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it.

There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month’s publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to “the DSM” on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media.

The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking if it was true — as Dearlove told the July meeting — that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” in Washington.

The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that “the facts were not fixed in any shape or form at all”.

John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy. He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they agreed to “manufacture” the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war.

He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the American former ambassador who went to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons programme.

Frustrated at the refusal by the White House to respond to their letter, the congressmen have set up a website — www.downingstreetmemo.com — to collect signatures on a petition demanding the same answers.

Conyers promised to deliver it to Bush once it reached 250,000 signatures. By Friday morning it already had more than 500,000 with as many as 1m expected to have been obtained when he delivers it to the White House on Thursday.

AfterDowningStreet.org, another website set up as a result of the memo, is calling for a congressional committee to consider whether Bush’s actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for impeachment.

It has been flooded with visits from people angry at what they see as media self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have attracted more than 1m hits a day.

Democrats.com, another website, even offered $1,000 (about £550) to any journalist who quizzed Bush about the memo’s contents, although the Reuters reporter who asked the question last Tuesday was not aware of the reward and has no intention of claiming it.

The complaints of media self-censorship have been backed up by the ombudsmen of The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Public Radio, who have questioned the lack of attention the minutes have received from their organisations.

[mc mark]

flamingmoe you didn't like my post?

;)

[flamingmoe]

more and more British internal memos are poping up

They clearly show Bush was commited to war with Iraq at the same time he was publicly saying he wasn't. They also show that Bush was using the UN to go to war, not using the UN to avoid war like he and Blair have claimed.

If lying about a blow job is impeachable, what is lying about war?

Read them for yourself and decide

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Iraq_options_paper_Full__0613.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/A_month_after_the_axis_of_evil_British_foreign_secretary_Straw_says_case_for_Iraq_is_wea_0613.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Iraq_The_British_legal_backg_0613.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/The_truth_is_what_has_changed_is_not_the_pace_of_Saddams_WMD_pro_0613.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/The_need_to_wrongfoot_Saddam_on_the_inspect_0613.html

[flamingmoe]

flamingmoe you didn't like my post?

;)

it was a lil redundant :)

[glynch]

If lying about a blow job is impeachable, what is lying about war?

Aw shucks. He wasn't lying-- just spinning like all politicians do. Besides, how do you really know the liberal media was quoting him corectly when he said he was still making up his mind? Besides it is always possible that President Bush misspoke as he sometimes does. Also it is always possible that he later corrected this statement and you and the liberal media didn't report this either.

Also, you can't be sure that he hadn't absolutely totally made up his mind under all circumstances.

It was always possible that, and the President could not have absolutely been sure that: Sadam would not have renounced his position so that Chalabi could be President and Prime Minister of Iraq; and that Chalbi would then recognize Israel and build an oil pipeline from Iraq to Israel as he promised the neocons, and they could get rid of oil the contracts with Russia, France, Germany etc give them to American and British companies; and they could ban all cell phones not on US controlled networks; and they could use their oil money to build permanent US military bases in Iraq as the neocons hinted etc.

Then Bush would not have started a war with Iraq; so therefore he wasn't necessarily sure he would invade Iraq and therefore was not telling a lie,

Y'all are just a bunch of partisan Democrats, so that is why you think President Bush was lying, and you can't actually prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had absoutely made up his mind under all circumstances.

Fair minded, neutral people like us can see that it might have just been an innocent mistake or a failure to provide sufficient detail about how the President as a man of peace was still hoping to avoid war.

[wnes]

If lying about a blow job is impeachable, what is lying about war?

To impeach Dubya, you need to clean House (Congress). As it stands, quite impossible.

[mc mark]

To impeach Dubya, you need to clean House (Congress). As it stands, quite impossible.

Well we'll see what happens at the mid terms.

[RocketMan Tex]

To impeach Dubya, you need to clean House (Congress). As it stands, quite impossible.

Dubya is non-impeachable, regardless of whether you clean House or not.

Let's face the truth....as crappy a President as Dubya is, can you imagine a world with President Dick Cheney?????.

:eek:

[andymoon]

Dubya is non-impeachable, regardless of whether you clean House or not.

Let's face the truth....as crappy a President as Dubya is, can you imagine a world with President Dick Cheney?????.

:eek:

As we saw with Clinton, it is possible to impeach a president without removing him from office.

[pirc1]

Dubya is non-impeachable, regardless of whether you clean House or not.

Let's face the truth....as crappy a President as Dubya is, can you imagine a world with President Dick Cheney?????.

:eek:


Very good point, no way I want Dick Cheney in office. Keep Bush for next 3 years.

[rhester]

Very good point, no way I want Dick Cheney in office. Keep Bush for next 3 years.

Who knows- Cheney may have been running things from day 1.

[glynch]

In the previous post I was just trying to come up with some theory from the Bush supporters, so they could avoid the realization Bush was lying to them.

For others it is not important if Bush lied since he was justified in lying. 1) everyone does it 2) Sadam did it, too. 3) Bill Clinton lied, too 4) since there is a war on terrorism, you are justifying in lying to avoid tipping off the terrorists on your strategy.

Finally, the American people are a weak silly people lacking courage and moral fiber who don't know what is good for them. Therefore the strong, true patriots are justified in lying to them in order to get them to go to war to defend the Republic. It is their duty under the Constitution. That is why this is America's golden moment.

[No Worries]

Cliff notes for understanding American politics:

Clinton lied about sex and the Democrats forgave him.

GWB lied about the reasons to start a war and the Repibicans forgave him.

[glynch]

Cliff notes for understanding American politics:

Clinton lied about sex and the Democrats forgave him.

GWB lied about the reasons to start a war and the Repibicans forgave him.

Largely true. However, does this mean the two lies are somehow comparable, when you are thinking about the duties of the Presidency? Is it the same thing to forgive someone for a relatively unimportant lies vs a lie that leads to tens of thousands killed, hundreds of thousands wounded and a weaker country?

I guess one can argue that by paving the way for Bush II's presidency, the Clinton lie did wind up killing lots of folks and weakening the country.

[pirc1]

Largely true. However, does this mean the two lies are somehow comparable, when you are thinking about the duties of the Presidency? Is it the same thing to forgive someone for a relatively unimportant lies vs a lie that leads to tens of thousands killed, hundreds of thousands wounded and a weaker country?

I guess one can argue that by paving the way for Bush II's presidency, the Clinton lie did wind up killing lots of folks and weakening the country.


True, if Clinton could keep his wood in his pants, no way Bush gets elected in 2000.

[No Worries]

does this mean the two lies are somehow comparable
Goes to show the priorities of both parties.

[mc mark]

Democrats Urge Inquiry on Bush, Iraq

Amid new questions about President Bush's drive to topple Saddam Hussein, several House Democrats urged lawmakers on Thursday to conduct an official inquiry to determine whether the president intentionally misled Congress.

At a public forum where the word "impeachment" loomed large, Exhibit A was the so-called Downing Street memo, a prewar document leaked from inside the British government to The Sunday Times of London a month and a half ago. Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, organized the event.

Recounting a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair's national security team, the memo says the Bush administration believed that war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam.

"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 president "may have deliberately deceived the United States to get us into a war," Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said. "Was the president of the United States a fool or a knave?"

The Democratic congressmen were relegated to a tiny room in the bottom of the Capitol and the Republicans who run the House scheduled 11 major votes to coincide with the afternoon event.

"We have not been told the truth," Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son was killed in Baghdad a year ago, told the Democrats. "If this administration doesn't have anything to hide, they should be down here testifying."

The White House refuses to respond to a May 5 letter from 122 congressional Democrats about whether there was a coordinated effort to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy, as the Downing Street memo says.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan says Conyers "is simply trying to rehash old debates."

Conyers and a half-dozen other members of Congress were stopped at the White House gate later Thursday when they hand-delivered petitions signed by 560,000 Americans who want Bush to provide a detailed response to the Downing Street memo. When Conyers couldn't get in, an anti-war demonstrator shouted, "Send Bush out!" Eventually, White House aides retrieved the petitions at the gate and took them into the West Wing.

"Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war," Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said earlier at the event on Capitol Hill.

Misleading Congress is an impeachable offense, a point that Rangel underscored by saying he's already been through two impeachments. He referred to the impeachment of President Clinton for an affair with a White House intern and of President Nixon for Watergate, even though Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment.

Conyers pointed to statements by Bush in the run-up to invasion that war would be a last resort. "The veracity of those statements has — to put it mildly — come into question," he said.

John Bonifaz, a lawyer and co-founder of a new group called AfterDowningStreet.org, said the lack of interest by congressional Republicans in the Downing Street memo is like Congress during Nixon's presidency saying "we don't want" the Watergate tapes

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050617/ap_on_go_co/downing_street_memo;_ylt=AnTBYHXq2S2Hs0q.do2oq4myFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

[mc mark]

BTW for anyone who is truly interested in the truth. This website will keep you busy for a while.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo

[mc mark]

From this evening's Nelson Report ...

[There is] an increased press and Congressional focus on the so-called “Downing Street Memo”, from the then-head of Britian’s secret service to Prime Minister Blair, stating flatly that President Bush and his top advisors had determined to go to war with Iraq well in advance of playing out the UN process.
Such an interpretation is, of course, arguable, as per the Bush/Blair press conference last week, about which you will have read, and will read more tomorrow, given a suddenly large push by more than 100 Hill Democrats. Our point for tonight is that this memo, really a series of memos, has had a strange life...but after a delayed reaction in this country, it seems to be leading somewhere...where, exactly, is the question.

We can report, not as a partisan, but as an observer who happened to be working for a Congressman deeply involved in the Pentagon Papers fight of 1971, that old hands note eerie similarities to the start-up process of questions raised, and the potential for Congress to become more seriously involved.

Two examples of related concerns to the “Downing Steet” memos: DOD Secretary Rumsfeld’s pre-positioning of thousands of troops and large stores of equipment, months before the final decision was made; the top-level White House involvement in the “torture memo” process that led directly to the international humiliation of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, despite internal warnings from then-Secretary of State Powell and Deputy Secretary Armitage.

Add those up, add your own examples, and you will know why you hear conversations in the past couple of days using the “impeachment” word...not as a prediction, this is way too soon and/or extreme for now...but as part of an attempt to measure historic parallels, and to think aloud on how far this process might go. Maybe nowhere? Or, maybe we’re just seeing the beginning of something. We mention it tonight because the conversation is being held less quietly than before, and politics in Washington may be about to get even worse, if you can imagine anything worse.


Passed on without comment.


-- Josh Marshall

[mc mark]

From the horse's mouth...

COMMENTARY
The Real News in the Downing Street Memos

By Michael Smith
Michael Smith writes on defense issues for the Sunday Times of London.

June 23, 2005

It is now nine months since I obtained the first of the "Downing Street memos," thrust into my hand by someone who asked me to meet him in a quiet watering hole in London for what I imagined would just be a friendly drink.

At the time, I was defense correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, and a staunch supporter of the decision to oust Saddam Hussein. The source was a friend. He'd given me a few stories before but nothing nearly as interesting as this.

The six leaked documents I took away with me that night were to change completely my opinion of the decision to go to war and the honesty of Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush.

They focused on the period leading up to the Crawford, Texas, summit between Blair and Bush in early April 2002, and were most striking for the way in which British officials warned the prime minister, with remarkable prescience, what a mess post-war Iraq would become. Even by the cynical standards of realpolitik, the decision to overrule this expert advice seemed to be criminal.

The second batch of leaks arrived in the middle of this year's British general election, by which time I was writing for a different newspaper, the Sunday Times. These documents, which came from a different source, related to a crucial meeting of Blair's war Cabinet on July 23, 2002. The timing of the leak was significant, with Blair clearly in electoral difficulties because of an unpopular war.

I did not then regard the now-infamous memo — the one that includes the minutes of the July 23 meeting — as the most important. My main article focused on the separate briefing paper for those taking part, prepared beforehand by Cabinet Office experts.

It said that Blair agreed at Crawford that "the UK would support military action to bring about regime change." Because this was illegal, the officials noted, it was "necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action."

But Downing Street had a "clever" plan that it hoped would trap Hussein into giving the allies the excuse they needed to go to war. It would persuade the U.N. Security Council to give the Iraqi leader an ultimatum to let in the weapons inspectors.

Although Blair and Bush still insist the decision to go to the U.N. was about averting war, one memo states that it was, in fact, about "wrong-footing" Hussein into giving them a legal justification for war.

British officials hoped the ultimatum could be framed in words that would be so unacceptable to Hussein that he would reject it outright. But they were far from certain this would work, so there was also a Plan B.

American media coverage of the Downing Street memo has largely focused on the assertion by Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, that war was seen as inevitable in Washington, where "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

But another part of the memo is arguably more important. It quotes British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying that "the U.S. had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime." This we now realize was Plan B.

Put simply, U.S. aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were dropping a lot more bombs in the hope of provoking a reaction that would give the allies an excuse to carry out a full-scale bombing campaign, an air war, the first stage of the conflict.

British government figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that although virtually none were used in March and April, an average of 10 tons a month were dropped between May and August.

But these initial "spikes of activity" didn't have the desired effect. The Iraqis didn't retaliate. They didn't provide the excuse Bush and Blair needed. So at the end of August, the allies dramatically intensified the bombing into what was effectively the initial air war.

The number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq by allied aircraft shot up to 54.6 tons in September alone, with the increased rates continuing into 2003.

In other words, Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq.

The way in which the intelligence was "fixed" to justify war is old news.

The real news is the shady April 2002 deal to go to war, the cynical use of the U.N. to provide an excuse, and the secret, illegal air war without the backing of Congress.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-smith23jun23,0,6044694,print.story

[FranchiseBlade]

It is funny that despite what Smith talks about in this article, Cheney is still trying to use going to the UN as an effort to pursue peaceful means. This evidence merely shows that once again Cheney is lying.

It is seriously not an exaggeration to say that Cheney is equal to Saddam's press guy that claimed the U.S. hadn't taken any part of Baghdad as tanks were rolling through the airport.

I think Cheney's sanity is in its last throes.

[Mr. Clutch]

Pretty good article by Hitchens.

http://www.slate.com/id/2121212/

But the main Downing Street document does not introduce us to any hidden or arcane or occult knowledge. As Fred Kaplan wrote in Slate last week, it explains no mystery. As protagonist Jim Dixon observes in another context in Lucky Jim, it is remarkable for "its niggling mindlessness, its funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it threw upon non-problems." On a visit to Washington in the prelude to the Iraq war, some senior British officials formed the strong and correct impression that the Bush administration was bent upon an intervention. Their junior note-taker committed the literary and political solecism of saying that intelligence findings and "facts" were being "fixed" around this policy.

Well, if that doesn't prove it, I don't know what does. We apparently have an administration that can, on the word of a British clerk, "fix" not just findings but also "facts." Never mind for now that the English employ the word "fix" in a slightly different way—a better term might have been "organized."

[mc mark]

Mr C that's all well and good. But that's not what the administration was telling us.

Even as late as March 2003 we were being told "I haven't made up my mind."

[Mr. Clutch]

Mr C that's all well and good. But that's not what the administration was telling us.

Even as late as March 2003 we were being told "I haven't made up my mind."

Well FDR said he didn't want the US to get involved in World War I when he was looking for ways to get in. Bush had to say that otherwise the UN would be even LESS likely to put pressure on Iraq.

[RocketMan Tex]

Well FDR said he didn't want the US to get involved in World War I ...

I love it when HISD graduates post on this BBS!

:D

[Mr. Clutch]

I love it when HISD graduates post on this BBS!

:D

Actually I graduated in Sugar Land. So much for suburbian schools being better.

[RocketMan Tex]

Actually I graduated in Sugar Land. So much for suburbian schools being better.

:D:D:D

[giddyup]

The Downing Street Memo Story Won't Die

This comes as a huge surprise to me. I don't know about the rest of you.

[flamingmoe]

Never mind for now that the English employ the word "fix" in a slightly different way—a better term might have been "organized."

it is sorta amusing how these things come around again, when you get caught, you will argue over the stupidest things to throw attention away from the true point - just like Clinton and the meaning of "is" is - we have the right arguing what the meaning of "fixed" is when it is obvious


Sunday Times reporter Michael Smith, who first disclosed the memo on May 1, ridiculed the notion that "fixed" has a different meaning in Britain in a Washington Post online chat:

SMITH: There are number of people asking about fixed and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed and as for the reports that said this was one British official. Pleeeaaassee! This was the head of MI6. How much authority do you want the man to have? He has just been to Washington, he has just talked to George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq. Fixed means the same here as it does there.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200506170003