The Downing Street Memo

[rodeodance]

from AmericanProgress.org newsletter
May 24, 2005

by Christy Harvey and Judd Legum
with Nico Pitney and Mipe Okunseinde

WHITE HOUSE
The Downing Street Memo

In July 2002, the chief of British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove, returned from meetings in Washington with shocking news for his colleagues: the White House had already made up its mind to take military action against Iraq and was prepared to fix the intelligence to back up the plan. According to a recently leaked British memo which recorded the minutes of a meeting Dearlove had with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Foreign Minister Jack Straw and other advisers on July 23, 2002, President Bush never seriously considered using diplomacy to avert the war. Instead, the memo – known as the Downing Street Memo – shows Bush was determined to invade and was prepared to shape and manipulate intelligence to convince the American people war was necessary. The American media has been slow to give this memo the attention it deserves, although that's starting to change. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution charges it's becoming more and more clear: "The American people were deceived." The Des Moines Register agrees, writing this memo "should be enough for Congress to finally see its duty and launch a formal, independent inquiry."

THE FIX WAS IN: The memo has a damning statement from the chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, Sir Richard Dearlove (known in the memo only as "C"). Dearlove told British officials that "military action was now seen as inevitable," as President Bush "wanted to remove through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD." Instead of creating policy around the intelligence, however, Sir Richard reported that with President Bush, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Foreign Minister Jack Straw also expressed worry over the justification for the invasion. He charged Bush's case for war was "thin," stating: "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capacity was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

WAR? WHAT WAR? Keep in mind, at this time President Bush was telling Americans diplomacy was still an option and there were no plans yet to attack Iraq. In August 2002, for example, the State Department deputy spokesman shot down ideas that the administration was pushing for war, saying, "There are no plans to attack Iraq on the President's desk. He has said that."

NO PLAN FOR THE PEACE: The British memo also warned that "there was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." This statement proved to be tragically prescient. Well over a year after the invasion, L. Paul Bremer, the former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said the United States "never had enough troops on the ground," charging inadequate military staffing allowed rampant looting. "We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," Bremer said. The White House also sent very young, inexperienced ideologues, chosen for their loyalty rather than their training. Money was bottlenecked; contracts were botched. Today, much of the country is without steady electricity or clean water, and $8.8 billion in Iraqi reconstruction funds is missing.

THE DUPLICITOUS PAT ROBERTS: The new memo should push Congress to finally launch the promised investigation over the White House role in manipulating intelligence before the war. When it became glaringly apparent no weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, the Senate Intelligence Committee began an investigation into what went wrong. Sens. Pat Roberts (R-KS) and John Rockefeller (D-WV) agreed to divide the investigation into two parts: a section on the shortcomings of the intelligence community and an examination of White House pressure and manipulation of intelligence that would be released later. When the first section on the intel community was released in July 2004, Tim Russert asked Roberts if the section on White House culpability would be ready in time for the election. "I don't know if we can get it done before the election," Roberts responded. "It's more important to get it right." Recently Roberts revised his views; instead of getting it right, he'd rather not do it at all. After President Bush was reelected, Roberts changed his tune, first saying the investigation was "basically on the back burner," then calling it a "monumental waste of time."............

[thecrow]

1. There are no plans to attack Iraq on the President's desk.

Yeah it was already moved to the outbox.

[Dragonfli]

2. Those plans are on the VP's Desk

Too important for shrubbery....