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The AP seems to have finally gotten off of its lazy pro-Republican ass and has started to carry the series of Downing Street Memos which continue to be uncovered by the British press proving that Bush lied and distorted fact after fact after fact. That means that domestic papers are now carrying the story about how Bush lied to America.
British memos: Iraq war sounds like mere 'grudge'
June 19, 2005
BY THOMAS WAGNER
LONDON -- When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the U.S. national security adviser didn't want to discuss Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida.
She wanted to talk about ''regime change'' in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led invasion more than a year later.
President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials worried the White House was rushing to war, according to a series of leaked secret Downing Street memos that have renewed questions and debate about Washington's motives for ousting Saddam Hussein.
In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts openly asks whether the Bush administration had a clear and compelling military reason for war.
*''U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing,'' Ricketts says in the memo. ''For Iraq, 'regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam.''
The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate he was determined to go to war as America's top ally, even though his government thought a preemptive attack may be illegal under international law.
*''The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September,'' said a typed copy of a March 22, 2002, memo obtained Thursday by the Associated Press and written to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
*''But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW [chemical or biological weapons] fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.''
The eight memos -- all labeled ''secret'' or ''confidential'' -- were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times.
'Softening up' illegal?
The Sunday Times this week reported that lawyers told the British government that U.S. and British bombing of Iraq in the months before the war was illegal under international law. That report, also by Smith, noted that almost a year before the war started, they began to strike more frequently.
The newspaper quoted Lord Goodhart, vice president of the International Commission of Jurists, as backing the Foreign Office lawyers' view that aircraft could only patrol the no-fly zones to deter attacks by Saddam's forces.
Goodhart said that if ''the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority,'' the Sunday Times reported.
AP
CONDI'S ROLE
Here are excerpts from material in secret Downing Street memos written in 2002. The information, authenticated by a senior British government official, was transcribed from the original documents:
In a memo dated March 14, 2002, Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning, tells the prime minister about a dinner he had with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state. Manning is now the British ambassador to the United States.
*''We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq. It is clear that Bush is grateful for your [Blair] support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option.''
*''Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed. But there were some signs, since we last spoke, of greater awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks. ... From what she said, Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions: How to persuade international opinion that military action against Iraq is necessary and justified; What value to put on the exiled Iraqi opposition; How to coordinate a U.S./allied military campaign with internal opposition; (assuming there is any); What happens on the morning after?''
AP
British memos: Iraq war sounds like mere 'grudge'
June 19, 2005
BY THOMAS WAGNER
LONDON -- When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the U.S. national security adviser didn't want to discuss Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida.
She wanted to talk about ''regime change'' in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led invasion more than a year later.
President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials worried the White House was rushing to war, according to a series of leaked secret Downing Street memos that have renewed questions and debate about Washington's motives for ousting Saddam Hussein.
In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts openly asks whether the Bush administration had a clear and compelling military reason for war.
*''U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing,'' Ricketts says in the memo. ''For Iraq, 'regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam.''
The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate he was determined to go to war as America's top ally, even though his government thought a preemptive attack may be illegal under international law.
*''The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September,'' said a typed copy of a March 22, 2002, memo obtained Thursday by the Associated Press and written to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
*''But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW [chemical or biological weapons] fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.''
The eight memos -- all labeled ''secret'' or ''confidential'' -- were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times.
'Softening up' illegal?
The Sunday Times this week reported that lawyers told the British government that U.S. and British bombing of Iraq in the months before the war was illegal under international law. That report, also by Smith, noted that almost a year before the war started, they began to strike more frequently.
The newspaper quoted Lord Goodhart, vice president of the International Commission of Jurists, as backing the Foreign Office lawyers' view that aircraft could only patrol the no-fly zones to deter attacks by Saddam's forces.
Goodhart said that if ''the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority,'' the Sunday Times reported.
AP
CONDI'S ROLE
Here are excerpts from material in secret Downing Street memos written in 2002. The information, authenticated by a senior British government official, was transcribed from the original documents:
In a memo dated March 14, 2002, Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning, tells the prime minister about a dinner he had with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state. Manning is now the British ambassador to the United States.
*''We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq. It is clear that Bush is grateful for your [Blair] support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option.''
*''Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed. But there were some signs, since we last spoke, of greater awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks. ... From what she said, Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions: How to persuade international opinion that military action against Iraq is necessary and justified; What value to put on the exiled Iraqi opposition; How to coordinate a U.S./allied military campaign with internal opposition; (assuming there is any); What happens on the morning after?''
AP
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