http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11574296.htm


British memo indicates Bush made intelligence fit Iraq policy

By Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott

Knight Ridder Newspapers



WASHINGTON - A highly classified British memo, leaked in the midst of Britain's just-concluded election campaign, indicates that President Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy.


The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service.


The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war.


"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable," the MI-6 chief said at the meeting, according to the memo. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," weapons of mass destruction.


The memo said "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."


No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.


The White House has repeatedly denied accusations made by several top foreign officials that it manipulated intelligence estimates to justify an invasion of Iraq.


It has instead pointed to the conclusions of two studies, one by the Senate Intelligence Committee and one by a presidentially appointed panel, that cite serious failures by the CIA and other agencies in judging Saddam's weapons programs.


The principal U.S. intelligence analysis, called a National Intelligence Estimate, wasn't completed until October 2002, well after the United States and United Kingdom had apparently decided military force should be used to overthrow Saddam's regime.


The newly disclosed memo, which was first reported by the Sunday Times of London, hasn't been disavowed by the British government. A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington referred queries to another official, who didn't return calls for comment on Thursday.


A former senior U.S. official called it "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" during the senior British intelligence officer's visit to Washington. He spoke on condition of anonymity.


A White House official said the administration wouldn't comment on leaked British documents.


In July 2002, and well afterward, top Bush administration foreign policy advisers were insisting that "there are no plans to attack Iraq on the president's desk."


But the memo quotes British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a close colleague of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, as saying that "Bush had made up his mind to take military action."


Straw is quoted as having his doubts about the Iraqi threat.


"But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran," the memo reported he said.


Straw reportedly proposed that Saddam be given an ultimatum to readmit United Nations weapons inspectors, which could help justify the eventual use of force.


Powell in August 2002 persuaded Bush to make the case against Saddam at the United Nations and to push for renewed weapons inspections.


But there were deep divisions within the White House over that course of action. The British document says that the National Security Council, then led by Condoleezza Rice, "had no patience with the U.N. route."


Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is circulating a letter among fellow Democrats asking Bush for an explanation of the document's charges, an aide said.

For all we know, this memo could have been written by...you?

I wish they could print out the memo along with the story. Until then, I see this as just more made up stuff to bash the President.

We had a choice of Nader, Kerry, or Bush in 2004. Everyone knows Nader was not going to win, so we are left with Kerry and Bush.

Kerry surely does have a history so I would like to ask the Kerry supporters, what are you thinking??

I hope the memo comes out officially. But I'm sure the goonies are already working hard on surpressing it.

What are we thinking as a nation when we allow Nader, Bush, and Kerry to be the only choices??

We the people can change this!

With the centralized media and power in this country "we the people" haven't got a clue!! the truth equates to the best spin played over and over during dinnertime news..

I for one will never again vote for a rep or dem, and that is how I make my stand.

Does this really surprise anyone?

Do any of you HONESTLY believe that this administration would not blatantly fabricate documents it needed to go to war against the guy who made W's daddy look so bad?

As for Kerry having a history, sure he may have done some slimy stuff, all politicians and most people have. But he is a bonified war hero, not a run away from the National Guard...

Just another display of the hypocrisy that is the foundation of this nation...

Since the end of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, Iraq and Saddam Hussein have been under the eye of the UN and the US and its allies. Weapons inspectors were in the country under the cease fire of the Gulf War.

Not only the US, but other countries as well feared that Saddam Hussein, who had used WMD in the past, was again trying to use this cease fire to build up his arsenal. Not just Republicans, but Democrats as well, believed this, just look at the Congressional Record from the 1990's.

This point has been beaten into the ground already. The election is over, its time to get on with it. Saddam has been removed and is facing trial in his own country. Iraq has held free election (Want to make Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, or John Kerry sick to their stomachs, attend a rally of theirs with purple dye on your finger) and t he country is rebuilding. The US is still in Iraq fighting not Iraq freedom fighters, but terrorist from Iraq, Libya, Syria, and a host of other nations. Democracy is feared and hated by those who wish to rule by terror and fear.

dmk

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/britain.war.memo/


Bush asked to explain UK war memo

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support the Iraq war in mid-2002.

The timing of the memo was well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval.

The Times of London newspaper published the memo -- actually minutes of a high-level meeting on Iraq held July 23, 2002 -- on May 1.

British officials did not dispute the document's authenticity, and Michael Boyce, then Britain's Chief of Defense Staff, told the paper that Britain had not then made a decision to follow the United States to war, but it would have been "irresponsible" not to prepare for the possibility.

The White House has not yet responded to queries about the congressional letter, which was released on May 6.

The letter, initiated by Rep. John Conyers, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the memo "raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own administration..."

"While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your administration," the letter said.

But, the letter said, when the document was leaked Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman called it "nothing new."

In addition to Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, Attorney General Peter Goldsmith, MI6 chief Richard Dearlove and others attended the meeting.

A British official identified as "C" said that he had returned from a meeting in Washington and that "military action was now seen as inevitable" by U.S. officials.

"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 U.N. 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."

The memo further discussed the military options under consideration by the United States, along with Britain's possible role.

It quoted Hoon as saying the United States had not finalized a timeline, but that it would likely begin "30 days before the U.S. congressional elections," culminating with the actual attack in January 2003.

"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided," the memo said.

"But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

The British officials determined to push for an ultimatum for Saddam to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq to "help with the legal justification for the use of force ... despite U.S. resistance."

Britain's attorney general, Peter Goldsmith, advised the group that "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action" and two of three possible legal bases -- self-defense and humanitarian intervention -- could not be used.

The third was a U.N. Security Council resolution, which Goldsmith said "would be difficult."

Blair thought that "it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors."

"If the political context were right, people would support regime change," the memo said.

Later, the memo said, Blair would work to convince Bush that they should pursue the ultimatum with Saddam even though "many in the U.S. did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route."

And your point??? A lawyer making a case will use the evidence available that best fits what he wants the jury to believe, discarding the evidence that does not fit. I see nothing different here, the administration utilized the evidence it had available that best fit its belief that Iraq and Saddam had WMDs.

The other points showed that the admistration sought legal justification for the war, and sought advice to see what would meet the requirements.

dmk