Top Secret British Memo reveals BushAdmin was spinning Iraq!

[Da Lone-Warrior]

This article from the TimesonLine is purportedly a memo that circulated in the Blair Administration in England in July 2002.

Here are some excerpts:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. 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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Some people say we ought to demand a further investigation.

I think that would be a worthwhile thing to do. There were other options besides immediate regime change wrt Iraq and it would be good to expose those that were most responsible for the manipulation of the US( I believe this would probably turn out to be Dick Cheney.).

dlw

[Duder]

The deception brought to light by this memo does not surprise me. What does surprise me is how this deception is accepted by American voters. Two presidents in my memory fell down because Americans no longer believed them - Johnson and Nixon. But I guess our values have changed - we no longer demand that our presidents be believable.

Edit/add:
It appears the British government essetially confirms the memo as genuine.

The United States Congress sent a letter to Bush about the memo:
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democ...emoltr5505.pdf

[jason]

Are you sure you are understanding the line ...

But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

... correctly ?

You are accusing the Bush administration of some coverup and fabrication, but this "incriminating sentence" could be read as the intelligence being finalised about the event.

Which would render your whole coverup and conspiracy so much hype about nothing.

You may be right, this may be a smoking gun, but only if the sentence means exactly what you are claiming it means. Something not at all demonstrated.

Jason

[Duder]

Are you sure you are understanding the line ...

But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

... correctly ?

You are accusing the Bush administration of some coverup and fabrication, but this "incriminating sentence" could be read as the intelligence being finalised about the event.

Which would render your whole coverup and conspiracy so much hype about nothing.

You may be right, this may be a smoking gun, but only if the sentence means exactly what you are claiming it means. Something not at all demonstrated.

Jason

Pretty plain to me, Jason. The Bush administration had its mind made to invade while at the same time telling the American people it would only do so as a last resort. The policy to invade is what the facts and the intelligence were being fixed around.

There will be no investigation. The right wing controls too much of the govenment. This will be an historical embarassment, nothing more.

[DivineOb]

Christians often accuse nonbelievers of being 'conveniently confused' when it comes to interpreting the bible... I guess Jason demonstrates that that criticism goes both ways...

Bush ought to be impeached at the minimum, and, if there is justice in the world, be tried for at least manslaughter in the deaths of the ~150k he has participated in.

[Darth Executor]

Christians often accuse nonbelievers of being 'conveniently confused' when it comes to interpreting the bible... I guess Jason demonstrates that that criticism goes both ways...

Bush ought to be impeached at the minimum, and, if there is justice in the world, be tried for at least manslaughter in the deaths of the ~150k he has participated in.

What 150k?

[Captain Ochre]

Christians often accuse nonbelievers of being 'conveniently confused' when it comes to interpreting the bible... I guess Jason demonstrates that that criticism goes both ways...

How so? Jason merely noted that the ambiguous term "fixed" was the entire key to the understanding of the memo lauded by LW and Duder.
Duder's explanation? It's clear to him! Case closed.

Bush ought to be impeached at the minimum, and, if there is justice in the world, be tried for at least manslaughter in the deaths of the ~150k he has participated in.

What should be done to people who inflate the war casualty numbers from Iraq?

[Captain Ochre]

This article from the TimesonLine is purportedly a memo that circulated in the Blair Administration in England in July 2002.

Here are some excerpts:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. 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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

I'm just here to help out LW, since the promise of "some" excerpts seems to be unfulfilled by the provision of one excerpt.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...3607_2,00.html
bold emphasis added.

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...3607_2,00.html

Given that the memo itself reinforces the fact that the UK (and implicitly the US) believed that Iraq had WMD, what specific intelligence do we suggest was being "fixed"?

Ooh! Here's a juicy tidbit:

John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...3607_2,00.html

Some people say we ought to demand a further investigation.

I suggest that they investigate the memo a bit further before bothering their government representatives.

I think that would be a worthwhile thing to do. There were other options besides immediate regime change wrt Iraq and it would be good to expose those that were most responsible for the manipulation of the US( I believe this would probably turn out to be Dick Cheney.).

We've officially taken a logical leap that goes far beyond the memo.
Demand an investigation of Cheney!

[jason]

Pretty plain to me, Jason.

Stick your head in the sand if you like. Words often have jargon meanings in internal communications that are easily misinterpreted by outsiders with no knowledge. I'm not saying your readin is wrong, I'm simply asking for you to do more than say, "Well I read it that way" as if that does anything more than treat me like an idiot and dodge the direct question I asked. Don't insult my intelligence and dodge the question, answer it.

The Bush administration had its mind made to invade while at the same time telling the American people it would only do so as a last resort. The policy to invade is what the facts and the intelligence were being fixed around.

Yes exactly. The intelligence was being finalised because the government knew that Saddam would not back down. As I said, demonstrate what you are claiming rather than just infering the worst possible reading because you happen to like attacking those whom it apparently indicts.

There will be no investigation.

At this point I would settle for being sure that the document even says what the looney left is claiming it says. Why should their even be an investigation of a document that may not say what you claim it says.

The right wing controls too much of the govenment.

Yeah that must be it. Not idiot leftists jumping up and down about nothing because they illiterate boobs who can't read the document. Stop your paranoid ramblings and answer my question.

How do you know the document is to be read the way you are claiming it should be read. It is a direct question and I want a direct and clear answer that isn't just, "Well I dun sure think-so jimmy bob, uhhuh, yessiree it sure dun looks that way to me".

Jason

[Ryokan]

I think its pretty clear at this point the the WMD arguement became the arguement for war after Colin Powell convinced the presudent he had to go to the UN. Previous to that, and now, the real discussion has been about reforming the Middle East. An illuminating, and very "neo-con" book, that I'd recommend is "The Pentagon's New Map" by Thomas Barnett, or some of Thomas L. Friedman's writing leading up to and after the war.
The Iraq war was a war for globalization.
As far as why aren't American's pissed? Well, I think after Nixon, Johnson, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, we expect to be lied to. If we win, then that is enough.
Honesty holds less water than competance. So, when it looks like we are winning, Americans don't care, and when we aren't, they are pissed.

[patteeu]

Is there anyone out there who is unsophisticated enough to not have realized that standard operating procedure for any government is to "spin" when they make public statements of any kind (up to and including preparing the citizenry for war)? A certain amount of spin has to be expected.

Intelligence is like statistics. It isn't a clean narrative of an objective truth. It is a jumble of confusing, often contradictory data inputs from a variety of sources of varying levels of credibility (which isn't always apparent in advance). And like statistics, many different stories can be told using the same set of data. ANY story told by the administration based on intelligence would be spin. That's the way it has always been and the way it will always be.

As others have said, there is nothing in that memo that makes it clear that the White House did anything unethical. "Fixing" the intelligence "around the policy" means that they were just deciding how to build their story out of the existing intelligence data. Sure that means "spin," but there is no reason to jump to the conclusion that intelligence data was being distorted or created out of thin air. If that were the case, then lets have the author of the memo step forward and say that's what they meant. Until then, I see no reason for the anti-Bush people to get too excited over this memo.

[Captain Ochre]

"Fixing" the intelligence "around the policy" means that they were just deciding how to build their story out of the existing intelligence data. Sure that means "spin," but there is no reason to jump to the conclusion that intelligence data was being distorted or created out of thin air. If that were the case, then lets have the author of the memo step forward and say that's what they meant. Until then, I see no reason for the anti-Bush people to get too excited over this memo.

But we need to investigate Cheney!!!!!!

[The Laughing Man]

What should be done to people who inflate the war casualty numbers from Iraq?

Under Saddam, they'd probably have their tongues cut out and their hands chopped off. Here in America, though, we just easily expose their b.s., then laugh at and ridicule them.

"Oh, but it was printed in a peer-reviewed journal of medicine so it must be true!!!"

:hilar:

[The Laughing Man]

This article from the TimesonLine is purportedly a memo that circulated in the Blair Administration in England in July 2002.

Was it faxed from a Kinko's in Texas?

[Da Lone-Warrior]

But we need to investigate Cheney!!!!!!

Listen Jack ---, cut out the nonChristianlike spin mocking a fellow poster!

My postulation regarding Cheney did not come from the memo, but rather my having read significant portions of other literature regarding the matter. It has been well documented publicly that Cheney was the point man for immediate regime change in Iraq, the one that first brought up the WMDs argument, and the one who controlled what intelligence was given to the president.

There is more to life than just spin. It was quite evident that the case for WMDs(as opposed to pursuing capabilities) was not a good one, and yet the BushAdmin let the US public think it was so as to garner their support for immediate regime change.

When it comes to leading a country to war, there ought to be consequences for those that do it by deception. The memo mentions a host of other stuff that could have been used to support extended action agains the Hussein regime.

The only reason such a memo may not make a difference is the apathy/cynicism of so many USAmericans towards gov't that is in and of itself harming the US's democracy.

dlw