What’s Up With the Downing Street Memo?
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? >>>continued
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? >>>continued
http://www.the-signal.com/News/ViewStory.asp?storyID=7284
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 5:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home