Why isn't there more talk of the smoking gun memo?

[Straybow]

I agree that the only reason Bush went to the UN was because Powell asked him to do so. Big deal.

I also agree that from the beginning Bush saw removal of Saddam as a better way of dealing with him than the endless posturing and pointless "inspections" of the UN route.

I dismiss the notion that this memo is a "smoking gun." When Rycroft says "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" he is using "fixed" to mean centered or focused. This is exactly what intelligence is for. Intelligence provides the best data and best analysis of enemy capabilities. Some of it will be contradictory, you use what data seems more believable at the time.

There is no indication that intelligence was being falsified. It is absurd to think that falsifying data would be casually mentioned in a broad policy meeting of that sort. Shame on the idiots who are so myopically focused on attacking Bush that they can't even use their brains.

[Ted Striker]

Even if the intelligence was not being falsified, it can be exaggerated, (intentionally) misconstrued, and used for false justification. Scott Ritter, the Chief Inspector in Iraq up to 1998, constantly complained about US Intelligence agencys trying to inflitrate the UN weapons inspections teams, and that they had a motive, and it was not to help with disarmament.

Regarding the UN inspections, they continued to show nothing. Current inspections have shown nothing.

So if they come to the conclusion that there was nothing, how can they be pointless?

They're only pointless if they can't be used by someone who wants to start a war, that's how.

[Straybow]

Up to the war the UN inspections showed the most important fact: that Hussein was actively impeding inspections specifically and UN action in general. They were pointless because everybody said that the files and equipment were invariably being removed before inspectors arrived.

[Berzerker]

I dismiss the notion that this memo is a "smoking gun." When Rycroft says "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" he is using "fixed" to mean centered or focused.

Then why didn't he say centered or focused instead of using a word most people understand to mean rigged, like in a boxing match?

[DRoseDARs]

Because he's British and the British use words in funny ways?

[DanS]

I don't think this dog will hunt. That text could mean a number of innocuous things.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Straybow
Up to the war the UN inspections showed the most important fact: that Hussein was actively impeding inspections specifically and UN action in general. They were pointless because everybody said that the files and equipment were invariably being removed before inspectors arrived.

Hans Blix says otherwise. He says that the war was planned long in advance and that the UN inspections were only just a formality.

Powell truly wanted the inspections to be given adequate time to find out whether or not there were weapons there.

And besides, there still have been absolutley no weapons found in Iraq.

[Berzerker]

Strange, British intel doesn't know better than to use words with such a well-known negative connotation regarding US policy? What do the Brits call fixed (rigged) boxing matches?

[DanS]

The WaPo is getting this right in that the real story about these memos is that according to the Brits, the Bush administration and the military spent comparably little time on post-war scenarios.

[Berzerker]

We wanted a magnet for terrorists in the area and Afghanistan was too far east. I recall several senators saying we wanted to fight them over there and not here. Analyse what that means and it becomes clear we wanted to wage this war in somebody else's country.

[Dinner]

Except what is meant by "fixed" is very clear. The administration was altering things to trump up a case which didn't exist and then lied to the American people. Later Bush shamelessly tried to blame the CIA when the CIA was the ones who objected to the administrations falsification of data. The adminstration has a pattern of falsifying data in order to justify crap policies; just look at how the administration let nonscientist oil industry lobbiests rewrite 10 years worth of climate research. Millions of dollars and years of work compromised so that the oil industry could muddy the waters and hide science which didn't go in their favor.

We should be honestly reviewing the science and making policy based upon the results not inventing a policy then selectively ignoring or using data in order to justify a policy.

[Dauphin]

Fixed, fixated, idée fixe. They all mean the same thing in this context.

I can only think that the words centred and focused do not demonstrate the one track mind that was to be intonated. Either way, its all semantics.

[Slaughtermeyer]

"Fixed" could mean focused or centered if it were not for the use of the word "but" at the beginning of the second of the following 2 sentences from the memo:

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.

If the word "But" is removed, I would agree that 'fixed' could mean focused or centered. The fact that the word 'But' is included means that it contradicts or casts doubt on something in the previous sentence, namely the justification of terrorism and WMD when in fact no such justification existed.

[Dauphin]

If you want to argue inferences that can be drawn then you need proper use of language to start with. Unfortunately, a properly constructed sentence should not start with 'but'.

[Slaughtermeyer]

Yeah, I guess you're right. Because the author of the memo mistakenly used a period instead of a comma between the two sentences, we can safely ignore the implications of the memo.