** DSM's have been authenticated, right? **

[JRob]

Yesterday I received a letter from US Senator Mike Crapo http://crapo.senate.gov (I try hard not to continually make jokes about the fact that my Senator is "Crapo")... Anyway I am constantly writing and calling Crapo, Craig, Otter and receive a non-stop stream of return correspondence from their offices.

This recent letter from Crapo, dated June 9, 2005 is full of misinformation and lies and had me so foaming-at-the-mouth angry that I had to wait until this morning to write this post.

It starts out as one would expect:

"Thank you for contacting me regarding questions into the justification for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). I appreciate knowing your views and welcome the opportunity to respond."

and then the Crapo starts to fly...

"As you know, questions have been raised recently in respect to the justification for OIF, including a British government memo purporting that, prior to military action, the United States fixed intelligence information to fit the case for conflict. White House officials denied the charges and stated the decision-making leading up to OIF was an open process. They emphasized that the decision to invade in March 2003 was taken only after former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein refused to comply with repeated United Nations resolutions and significant pressure from the international community…"

here’s the kicker

"British government officials have not confirmed the authenticity of the memo in question. If credible and substantiated information is found regarding questions into justification for OIF, further investigation may be warranted."

My understanding is that the DSM has been authenticated and that additional “credible and substantiated information” has been found…

Right?

Maybe we need to enlighten him, or at least help him to update his information…

The rest of the letter is full of zingers including the first sentence of the next paragraph:

"I understand your opposition to the decision by President Bush to take steps to eradicate the threats posed by former Iraqi President Hussein…"

and I am in the process of writing a full response to this page-and-a-half of delusionary, disjointed BS which I will post as soon as I have finished.

[swag]

1. This article says, "yes."

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/06/19/excerpts_from_downing_street_memos/

[AlCzervik]

2. Thats bullshit and he knows it, nice try though.

[swag]

3. This has a very good discussion re: authenticity.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/21/051310.php

[Roland99]

4. Crapo is full of Crap-O

[napi21]

5. Reporters directly asked both Shrub & Blair about the memos.

NEITHER denied the authenticity of the docs, just that reports were misunderstanding whet they meant. Doesn't Crapo believe, if these 2 guys thought the docs were fake, they would have said so at that press briefing?

[deutsey]

6. Send him these articles

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0617/dailyUpdate.html

"Neither Bush nor Blair has disputed the authenticity of the memo, but when they met earlier this month they denied that it 'accurately reflected events.'"

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-britmemos15jun15,1,4096951.story?coll=l&track=mostemailedlink

"Blair's government has not challenged (the memos') authenticity."


http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2005/06/13/drhousem.htm

"High-ranking current and former members of both in the British and U.S. governments have reportedly confirmed the memo's authenticity."

[TahitiNut]

7. The memos have been, in effect, authenticated.

The British "Official Secrets Act" has very draconian penalties for discussing classified information in any way. Thus, there's absolutely no way that any UK official can verify any "memo" that's actually legitimate!

Let's pay close attention to that. There would be no such prohibition if the memos weren't legitimate. If they were fake, Blair and his cronies would have no problem proclaiming them as such.

Thus, they're legitimate.

[JRob]

8. Thanks (all) for the links, I'll be sure to forward them to "Crapo"