BRIT MEMO MINUTES PROVES BUSH LIED TO US ABOUT IRAQ

UPDATED 5/30/5 4:03am PDT: I've changed the title of this post thanks to a comment posted below. Seems the "memo" quoted by many in the press/media is actually the minutes from an intel meeting. That's a big difference. The content of a memo would suggest a person's interpretation of a meeting. These are MINUTES--the details of the actual meeting. This is what was actually said.

Now, to make sense of what I just said, go ahead and check out my original post as well as an earlier update:

I know this is old news to most people who read this blog. I know that most people of a centrist (like myself) or left-wing way of thinking would agree that this sort of thing is something we already knew.

Who doesn't know that George W. Bush misled us into the Iraq War?

Well, any Republican/conservative doesn't know--that's who and this post is for that person who needs proof to accept what the rest of us (and the world) have already known:

George W. Bush lied to us by manipulating the intelligence to make it look like Iraq had WMD when the intelligence simply did not indicate it.

Here are a few pertinent clips from an article from KnightRidder.com and Star-Telegram.com:

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

The visit took place while the Bush administration was telling the American public that it had not decided whether 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," or weapons of mass destruction.

Hang on, there's more:

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

And more:

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

A former senior U.S. official called the memo "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 no plans to attack Iraq were 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 quotes Straw as saying.

So, there you have it--remember that State of the Empire address where Bush claimed the UK government had found evidence that Saddam had tried to get uranium from Africa? Well, he could have mentioned in the same breath that the UKG also believed that Saddam was less of a threat than Iran, Libya and NoKo.

Can we impeach this guy now, please???

UPDATED 5/13/5 10:09am PDT: Hey, now there's an article from WashingtonPost.com about this over at SFGate.com! Might this story be catching some slight wind?

Or is that me just cutting some?

From KnightRidder.com and Star-Telegram.com:

Posted on Fri, May. 06, 2005

British memo: Bush bent data to fit Iraq policy

By Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott

Knight Ridder News Service

WASHINGTON - A highly classified British memo, leaked during 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 summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, during which the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service reported on a recent visit to Washington.

The visit took place while the Bush administration was telling the American public that it had not decided whether 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," or weapons of mass destruction.

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

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 by several top foreign officials that it manipulated intelligence estimates to justify invading Iraq. It has pointed to the conclusions of two studies, one by the Senate Intelligence Committee and one by a panel appointed by Bush. Both say the CIA and other intelligence agencies seriously misjudged Iraqi 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 to use military force to overthrow Saddam.

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

A former senior U.S. official called the memo "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 no plans to attack Iraq were 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 quotes Straw as saying.

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

In August 2002, Powell persuaded Bush to present 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 of Michigan, the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is circulating a letter among fellow Democrats asking Bush to explain the document's allegations, an aide said.

From WashingtonPost.com and SFGate.com:

New light on Bush's war plans
By July '02, U.S. set on invasion, British intelligence reported

Walter Pincus, Washington Post

Friday, May 13, 2005

Eight months before the invasion of Iraq, the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that U.S. intelligence was "being fixed around" that goal, according to notes of a 2002 meeting with Blair at No. 10 Downing Street.

"Military action was now seen as inevitable," said the notes, summarizing a report by Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, the British intelligence service, who had just returned from consultations in Washington, along with other senior British officials. Dearlove continued, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and (weapons of mass destruction). But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The notes were first disclosed on May 1 by the Sunday Times of London, triggering criticism of Blair on the eve of the May 5 British parliamentary elections that he had decided to support an invasion of Iraq well before informing the public of his views.

The Sunday Times article described minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting of Blair and his intelligence and military chiefs, a briefing paper for that meeting, and a Foreign Office legal opinion prepared before the summit of Blair and Bush in Crawford, Texas, on April 6-7, 2002.

The notes of the Blair meeting, attended by the prime minister's senior national security team, also disclose for the first time that Britain's intelligence boss believed that Bush had decided to go to war in mid-2002, and that he believed U.S. policymakers were trying to use the limited intelligence they had to make the Iraqi leader appear to be a bigger threat than was supported by known facts.

Reverberations from the report blew over quickly in Britain, where Blair won a third term as prime minister, although with a smaller majority for his Labor Party.

But in the United States, there has been a growing groundswell of indignation among critics of the Bush White House, who say the documents helped prove Bush and Blair settled on the invasion nearly a year before launching their attack, shaped intelligence to that aim and never seriously intended to avert the war through diplomacy.

Both Blair and Bush have denied a war decision was made that early. The White House and Downing Street maintain that they were preparing for military operations as one option, but the option to not attack also remained open until the start of the war on March 20, 2003.

In a letter to Bush last week, 89 House Democrats, including seven from the Bay Area, asked whether the memos proved that the White House had already agreed on an invasion months before seeking authorization from Congress.

Although critics of the Iraq war have accused Bush and his top aides of misusing what has since been shown as limited intelligence in the prewar period, they have been unsuccessful in getting an investigation of that matter. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has dropped its previous plan to review how U.S. policymakers used Iraq intelligence, and the president's commission on intelligence did not look into the subject because it was not authorized to do so by its charter, Laurence Silberman, the co-chairman, told reporters last month.

Since the initial story was published in Britain, Blair's Downing Street office has not disputed the report's authenticity. A Blair spokesman said the story added nothing of significance to the much-investigated record of the lead-up to the war.

"At the end of the day, nobody pushed the diplomatic route harder than the British government. ... So the circumstances of this July discussion very quickly became out of date," said the spokesman.

The leaked minutes summed up the July 23 meeting at which Blair, his top security advisers and his attorney general discussed Britain's role in the U.S. plan to oust Hussein. The minutes, written by a foreign policy aide, Matthew Rycroft, describe general thoughts among participants about how to create a political and legal basis for a war.

The case for military action at the time was "thin," Foreign Minister Jack Straw was characterized as saying, and Hussein's government was posing little threat.

During the July 2002 time frame, Bush was working to build support in the United States for a war against Hussein, a U.S. base in Qatar was being expanded, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was trying to get Turkey to assist in potential military action against the Iraqi leader.

Blair's senior advisers at the July 2002 meeting decided they would prepare an "ultimatum" for Iraq to permit U.N. inspectors to return, despite being told that Bush's National Security Council, then headed by Condoleezza Rice, "had no patience with the U.N. route," according to the notes. "The prime minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors."

Labeled "secret and strictly personal -- UK eyes only," the minutes begin with the MI6 head, identified as "C," saying that he had returned from Washington, where there was a "perceptible shift in attitude."

Straw agreed that Bush seemed determined on military action, though the timing was not certain.

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

Straw then proposed to "work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam" to permit weapons inspectors back into the country. "This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force," he said, according to the minutes.

Blair himself said, according to the minutes, "that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Hussein refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors."

The prime minister continued, "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."

In addition to the minutes, the Sunday Times story referred to a Cabinet briefing paper that was given participants prior to the July 2002 meeting, which stated that Blair had already promised Bush cooperation in their Texas meeting.

"The UK would support military action to bring about regime change," the Sunday Times quoted the briefing paper as saying.

Although the briefing paper reported that the National Security Council had "no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record," the Blair team soon set in motion preparation of the public dossier on Iraq, which was published in late September 2002.

Another piece of the British memo has relevance now, as the United States battles an insurgency that some say was exacerbated by faulty planning for the post-invasion period. "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action," the notes say.

The White House has not commented on the content of the British memos.

"If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of our own administration," the letter from House Democrats said.

"While the president of the United States was telling the citizens and the Congress that they had no intention to start a war with Iraq, they were working very close with Tony Blair and the British leadership at making this a foregone conclusion," it said.

The letter's chief author, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said that if the documents are true, it is "a huge problem" in terms of an abuse of power. He said there had been no response from the White House to the letter.

The Bay Area Democrats who signed Conyers' letter include Barbara Lee, Oakland; Sam Farr, Carmel; Zoe Lofgren, San Jose; George Miller, Martinez; Pete Stark, Fremont; Ellen Tauscher, Walnut Creek; and Lynn Woolsey, Petaluma.

The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.

©2005 San Francisco Chronicle