Downing Street Memo
 

I know it was briefly touched on in another topic, but I felt it deserved its own. It's been out for a month now, I believe, yet has been largely ignored by the so-called liberal media. There is a petition online to get President Bush to answer questions about it, and last time I heard, they had over 100,000 signatures. It has the potential to be quite damaging, but I personally would like to withhold judgement on it until it's addressed by the administration(and I hope it is). Should the administration address it? Why do you think it has been ignored stateside?

For those that haven't read it, here it is:

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

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.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.

(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.

(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

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.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.

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.

The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.

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

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Conclusions:

(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.

(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.

(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.

(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.

He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.

(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.

(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.

(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT

(Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)

http://johnconyers.campaignoffice.com/

Is where the petition is if someone wanted to sign it.

Why is the liberal media not reporting this memo?

That's a good question, one to which I have no answer. You'd think if there were such an extreme liberal bias in the media, they'd be all over it.

Interesting, before the Downing Street Memo, liberals have found CNN, NYT, LA Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, Reuters, AP, BBC very agreable. Has that opinion changed because of this?

And conservatives haven't. Has that opinion changed because of this?

The memo is very old news. I remember reading about it around a year ago.

Um, I believe it was first published just before the parliamentary elections in Britian.

That may be, but I believe it's existence and contents were known quite a while ago.

I had never heard or seen anything about it until a few weeks ago, so I think it just came out. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am...

My guess is that it appears to some to possibly be as big a fake as the Rathergate "memo". When a "smoking gun" is too good to be true, it usually is.

Maybe we should Snopes it?

I know when asked about it, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said something to the effect of it being a non story, but neither him nor Tony Blair have denied its authenticity to the best of my knowledge.

If it were real it would be all over the British news, so I doubt it is genuine.

The memo was first published by the Times of London on May 1 and has been reported on everywhere. You can read the memo and all the press on it here: http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/index.html

Or you can delude yourself into believing whatever you want to believe. Who cares.

I hate America as as much as the next guy, but I don't see how this is particularly damning to anyone. Sounds like it's just relating perceptions about the Bush administration's policies that most people already accept as fact.

Have any of the inmates at Guantanamo verified this memo yet?

I'm totally confused. As far as I know there is no doubt about the authenticity of the memo. This is not like Rathergate at all. I'm especially confused by Ryan S.'s comment because this story was all over the British media right before the elections. I must have read a dozen stories about it in the British newspapers online. St. Cronin's comments are also a little weird, because although there have long been allegations that the Bush administration "massaged" the information to reach a pre-determined policy option, the memo was not even rumored about before April of this year.

I think the memo is a pretty good piece of evidence, but I guess I concluded a long time ago that the Bush administration was dead set on a course of action and was fine fixing the facts to do it. Of course, I thought Clarke was pretty credible, so that may be why. And given the administration's policy architect's beliefs in Straussian government, lying to acheive foreign invasion is pretty much a moral obligation for them.

So, for me, the memo is more of the same. I believe the US media isn't picking up because (contrary to Dutch and other's belief) the story is boring and not that the media is liberally biased. Rather, the media is sensationally biased and this story feels stale. Even though it is a "good" story, it just won't sell newspapers. Foxnews has shown flag-waving makes money and Rathergate has chilled most of the press from really criticizing the administration. Instead they resort to pot shots and small stories with no real investigative journalism. It's sad really.

WTF do you mean by that?

I had all the same thoughts that you did. I can't believe that so many people have never heard of this thing, and I agree that it is because everyone either already knows that the Bush administration (either purposefully or as a part of confirmation bias) massaged the intelligence, or believes that every anti-Bush thing is made up. You can see the knee-jerk reaction of people thinking that it has to be a fake, even though it doesn't really make sense for someone to forge a British memo to provide incriminating evidence against an American president.

The media isn't picking it up because there is no evidence for the conclusion reached. Perhaps if there was some basis for this conclusion in the memo, people would give it more credence:
This just one person's opinion on how Bush handled the leadup to the Iraq war. I have no doubt there are many others in the state department and other spots of the US government that feel the same way. Yet, it doesn't make it anymore true.

Perhaps if evidence or information was provided showing that Bush "fixed" facts, people would take it a little more seriously. As it stands now, it just looks like someone who didn't like the US policy sounding off in a memo - Shocking, I know.

As to addressing it, what specific charges are here? Which facts were fixed and what evidence does Mr. Rycroft have? If he has none, the president would be trying to address a general charge with no factual basis - no different from answering the perverbial "when did you stop beating your wife".

For this to be taken seriously, some specifics need to be provided by Rycroft to form some legitimate questions to be answered.

As sad as it sounds, I was very aggravated (and vocal) by the whole Iraq war lead up and the effect on the election (as well as the Abu Graib, etc.), but I have moved on. Bush has only 3 1/2 years left, and the majority of the US public was ok with the deceit, obviously believing the ends justify the means. Summer is here, and frankly I am now more interested in some good trips to the beach. Sad, really. But, I can't help it.

:) You're a hoot, John.

The point of using a Guantanamo Terror Suspect and the Downing Street Memo was satirical (poking fun at modern day left-wing sensationalism).

So, for example, if Newsweek were to get a hold of a terror suspect in say....Guantanamo, and that person were to say, "The US is pure evil and everything in the Memo surely is true."

I wouldn't put it past Newsweek to assume they have enough information to write a story.

Well, that's the only "facts" they could come up with, so the rest would have to be filler designed to incite both sides of the argument so they would want to read more. It's Modern Day Journalism 101.

Huh????

Yeah, that was an odd quote. I haven't been keeping up with this story very much, but here's a conservative who's writing about it.

hxxp://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200506060801.asp

This pretty much hits my thoughts on the issue to a tee. There is no evidence of any sort of "intelligence tampering or fixing" and appears to be no different than an OP-Ed in a local paper. From a substance stanpoint, this memo offers very little and is inciting outcries because of the seriousness of its accusations, not the content behind them.

Move along, nothing to see here...

here it comes, now the media is starting to ask the questions...it just pisses me off. If the Admin. had simply stuck to the humanitarian angle I think less people would object today. I was/am for the war on this merit but damnit, why'd he have to go the WMD route? and perhaps someone should've considered, "what if they're not there...maybe we shouldn't hanf our hat on this WMD thing entirely.:

Report: British had doubts on U.S. postwar plan in Iraq

Sunday, June 12, 2005 Posted: 9:26 AM EDT (1326 GMT)


British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush said they viewed military action in Iraq as a last resort.



WASHINGTON (AP) -- A staff paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair eight months before the invasion of Iraq concluded that U.S. military officials were not planning adequately for a postwar occupation, The Washington Post reported.

"A postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise," authorities of the briefing memo wrote, according to the Post. "As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."

The eight-page memo was written in advance of a July 23, 2002, meeting at Blair's Downing Street offices, the Post said in Sunday editions.

It said the memo and other internal British government documents were originally obtained by Michael Smith of the London Sunday Times and that excerpts made available to Post were confirmed as authentic by British sources who sought anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

The Post said the introduction to the memo -- "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" -- said U.S. "military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but that "little thought" has been given to, among other things, "the aftermath and how to shape it."

The July 21 memo was produced by Blair's staff in preparation for a meeting with his national security team two days later that has become controversial since last month's disclosure of official notes summarizing the session.

According to those minutes -- known as the Downing Street memo -- British officials who had just returned from Washington said the Bush administration believed war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

why'd he do this when it wasn't 100% and the humanitarian stuff was is beyond me...a marketing decision, I guess.

Blair denied at a news conference with President Bush last week that intelligence was manipulated to justify the war. (Full story)

I've always maintainted that it was a mistake to make WMDs the primary reason for the invasion, but anyone who says that the other reasons for war weren't mentioned are wrong. The humanitarian concerns and others were routinely mentioned by the administration and President leading up to and after the war. Those statements simply aren't as sexy as the WMD angle. That is, almost certainly, why they decided to give the WMD center stage, I too have come to the conclusion that it was purely a PR decision. I do also believe that the Administration wouldn't have gone out nearly so far on the WMD limb, if they weren't 100% sure we would find the WMDs in Iraq.

http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/02...22006_tpo.html


Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense Bill
Cohen, and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger elaborating on U.S.
goals in Iraq, February 18, 1998.

# of times Clinton invaded Iraq: 0

You can't really equate wrong rhetoric with wrong actions.

I don't think the majority of folks would consider it wrong rhetoric. Hell I'm not sure a majority would right now consider it a wrong action.

I can think of about 1700 families that might beg to differ with you.

Regardless of right or wrong, those families raised men and women of action. Most people who are opposed to the war are more likely to be men and women of rhetoric. So you are wrong to think that.

Hmmm, couldn't stomach requoting a democratic admin agreeing word for word with the Bush admin? Hurts huh? After all that left-wing media had you thinking otherwise? ;)

Found those WMDs - check
Capture Osama - check
Short stay in Iraq - check



oh wait, that's only in bizarro world. I mean, I sure am glad we came out with that Iraqi deck of cards because who the hell would really want to get Osama... with all the updates on our progress there we surely must be close :rolleyes:

Sorry but there's a huge difference between 1 admin relying on faulty intel and going the diplomatic route vs another admin relying on faulty intel and starting a needless war over it.

glen - care to find the latest poll numbers regarding support for the war to back up your claim?

On the other hand, Clinton has said his biggest foreign policy mistake was NOT using military force to remove Saddam from power.

Yeah, but we all know Clinton was a man of public opinion polls. So did Clinton say this in 2002 when everyone in the democratic party except Dean was all about the war on terror or 2004 when everyone in the democratic party suddenly was opposed to the war in Iraq?

The real indictment is against our information gathering, not Clinton or Bush.

We have winner!

As to the memo, I'm still waiting for any shred of evidence or information that led the author to make the claim that the US admin was "fixing" intel. It's all fine and dandy to jump to these type of conclusions on a private memo. But if people are going to actually use this memo as evidence against the administration the emphasis needs to shift from the seriousness of the charge to the evidence supporting the claim.

Heck, I bet if you dug through every email in the state department and CIA you could fine memos declaring everything from WMDs being found to the war being a sham to Saddam being caught in lady's underwear. But writing a memo doesn't make any of these claims any more valid without having some sort of corroborating evidence from which to base them on.

I think it was known privately at least 6 mos. before Gulf 2.

Then tell Sen. Roberts that he should fulfill his promise of investigating pre-war intelligence usage.

Well then you haven't been following the latest polls.

This might be the most inane statement I've read in a good while. People of action are good, when they have good actions. Fabricating a war? Not so much. (here is the latest evidence of that: hxxp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/11/AR2005061100723.html ) To use an extreme example, Hitler was a man of action, but I wouldn't admire what he accomplished. But it's easy to see how an otherwise sane country supported him, isn't it?

Nevermind, this is the most inane. Try hitting the quote button on your post with those quotes and see what comes up.

I'm not a blind nationalist. I disagreed with a lot of Clinton's positions. But here is a short list of things he didn't do:

- Invade Iraq on trumped up charges

I don't think you can argue that that did not happen. Under Clinton we worked through the UN in Iraq, and it worked out splendidly: Saddam had no WMD capability and no ties to international terrorism.

How about the fact that there were no WMD's in Iraq? That nobody now supports the Iraq-Al Q link? Nobody has investigated the White House's use of pre-war intelligence.

So now the minutes of a highest-level meeting for our closest military ally have absolutely no credibility to them? You think that analysis was based on Bush's misinterpreted body language or something? I mean really, what evidence would you need to consider the obvious fact that something was wrong? Here we have our closest ally not insinuating it, but outright saying that the facts were being fixed around the policy. And all of the circumstancial evidence points to that being correct (no WMD's). Does Drudge have to admit to it before it becomes anything less than an insidious plot of the liberal media which seems more concerned with the location of missing pretty white women?

I wouldn't convict Bush and his administration on the information that we have, but I would certainly impeach him and find out everything there is to find out, this was the biggest fuck-up since Pearl Harbor at least and it would be nice to know how it happened. But our congress is only concerned about doing that if it has to do with blowjobs.

You would impeach a president over a third party memo in which the most explosive claim is subjective and based on the author's opinion, not fact?

Good lord. You talk about a flimsy pretext for going to war... so the answer to that is to use a flimsy pretext to impeach the man responsible? The people of England saw this story a month before the elections and they didn't feel it was worthy of getting Labor (and Blair) out of office. Yet you're ready to impeach a president over this?

BTW, before you start up with the inane blowjob comparisons, Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. He could've been getting rimjobs from the Rockettes and I doubt Congress would have said anything. Well, Santorum would've said something, but he wasn't there at the time.

One more thing before I get out of this thread. Chubby, you don't speak for the families of those who've lost their lives in this war any more than I do. I'd appreciate it if you'd quit speaking as if every person who's lost someone is of the same mind you are.

This memo is not in a vaccuum. This is not the only piece of evidence. This is just another brick in the foundation of a pretty good case. There is the fact that there were no WMD's (and the curious fact that the war plans did not call for troops to guard suspected WMD facilities, and hence why hundreds of tons of high explosives went missing), that the highest levels of British government thought they were fixing the facts around the policy, that Richard Clarke has asserted the same things, that Bush's own treasury secretary Paul O'Neill says the same thing, that Bush illegally allocated $700 million away from Afghanistan towards Iraq without congressional knowledge, that the Niger Uranium memos were falsified, that CIA and FBI analysts at the time complained that senior administration officials were exaggerating info to politically bolster their case, that the meeting between Atta and the Iraqi agent in Prague that was used as an obvious tie between Iraq and 9/11 appears to be fabricated, that the high end aluminum tubes that Iraq was purchasing for WMD production that Bush mentioned to the UN Security Council and then in his SOTU speech were found to be artillery rockets weeks before his SOTU speech, etc., I could go on and on about statements made by the administration that turned out to be B.S. Taken as a whole, it is a pretty strong case that something was not right. I believe it is enough to impeach. You may disagree, but I think you would even agree that an investigation should be conducted to find the source of the failure, but congress has little if any interest in that.

MrBigglesworth,

I strongly encourage you to get in touch with Howard Dean to push for impeachment because of that "evidence". If it's not just a bunch of BS, do something about it, or are the Democrats living up to their image of inactive politicians that can only spout rhetoric?

The facts are slowly seeping out, and the momentum of this is slowly growing. It's tough to get past the nationalism and the psychological blockings people have against thinking that their elected leaders would do something like this (like we saw with Nixon), especially when the 'news' networks are giving round the clock coverage to Michael Jackson and missing white women. But new evidence is emerging all the time now it seems, Bush's approval ratings are plummeting, 6 out of 10 people now think we should bring some or all troops home from Iraq (the congressman that coined the term "freedom fries" is about to introduce a bill to set a timetable to bring the troops home) and eventually the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.

The Dems are unwilling to start anything because of the incorrect, media-created image that Bush is a popular President, and I agree with you that they are being huge pusses. It makes me sad that I have to choose between crooks and vag's right now. But maybe when the President's approval ratings dip below 40% they will challenge him, and by that point I bet the GOPers that have eyes on the Presidency will start distancing themselves from the lame duck as well.

Isnt everything written by a 3rd party....Even the closest thing the Gitmo Torture memo came from the main guy and people discount that as coming from someone outside the circle. I mean you could take it down the slippery slope and say you will not believe it until Bush sits in front of you personally and admits to it (over TV a liberal could edit the picture and possibly dub over the verbage). At some point, like it usually bears out in my threads (it pans out in almost all of my topics - eventualy), the truth comes out. It just take a while before those Deep Throats get people's ears....but then someone has to write it and then youre destined to say it's crap...because it was written down. Entrenched, you are....maybe I am too, but the paper and evidence start over there and eventually ends up settling down over here...just takes time.

or maybe it's just the subjective opinion of an intelligence analyst that's completely contradicted by another memo, by another intelligence analyst, written the VERY SAME WEEK.

somehow I doubt this 2nd memo is going to be pushed by the folks that brought you downingstreetmemo.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/po...3downing.html?


Is this where you claim that this second memo is clearly a fake designed to take the heat off the REAL memo?