British Memo Reopens War Claim
By Stephen J. Hedges and Mark
Silva
The Chicago Tribune
Leaked briefing says
US intelligence facts `fixed' around policy.
Washington - A
British official's report that the Bush administration appeared intent on
invading Iraq long before it acknowledged as much or sought Congress'
approval--and that it "fixed" intelligence to fit its intention--has
caused a stir in Britain.
But the potentially
explosive revelation has proven to be something of a dud in the United
States. The White House has denied the premise of the memo, the American
media have reacted slowly to it and the public generally seems indifferent
to the issue or unwilling to rehash the bitter prewar debate over the
reasons for the war.
All of this has
contributed to something less than a robust discussion of a memo that
would seem to bolster the strongest assertions of the war's critics.
Frustrated at the
lack of attention to the memo, Democrats and war critics are working to
make sure it gets a wider hearing, doing everything from writing letters
to the White House to launching online petitions.
The memo was written
by British national security aide Matthew Rycroft, based on notes he took
during a July 2002 meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his
advisers, including Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain's MI-6
intelligence service who had recently met with Bush administration
officials.
Since being leaked to
a British newspaper, the memo has raised questions anew about whether the
Bush administration misrepresented prewar intelligence about suspected
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify military action against
Saddam Hussein's regime.
"Bush wanted to
remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of
terrorism and WMD," the memo said. "But the intelligence and facts were
being fixed around the policy. 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 hi-bility was less than that
of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
Blair's office has
not disputed the authenticity of the memo, but the White House
categorically denies the assertions in it. And on Capitol Hill, where
investigations already have denounced prewar intelligence about weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq as "deeply flawed," there appears to be little
appetite for reopening the question of why the U.S. went to war.
"I suppose it hasn't
played there because, basically, didn't everyone know that Bush decided
early on to get rid of Saddam?" asked Philip Stephens, a Blair biographer
and associate editor of the Financial Times of London.
Stephens argues that
there was a basic difference in the argument over the invasion of Iraq in
Britain and the U.S.
"The contexts of the
debates have always been different," Stephens said. "There was never
really a question [in the U.S.] about whether it was justified or not to
go for regime change. This was the administration's objective. People
either agreed with it or disagreed with it. There really wasn't a
disagreement about the legal basis for it."
Dubbed "the Downing
Street Memo," the report of the July 23, 2002, meeting of Blair and his
aides purported to recount the Bush administration's approach to Iraq at
that point. The memo asserted that Bush had decided to remove Hussein
nearly eight months before U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq.
Summarizing the view
of intelligence chief Dearlove after consulting with U.S. officials, the
memo said: "Military action was now seen as inevitable."
Public Told Another Story
At the time, the Bush
administration was assuring the public that a decision to go to war had
not been made and that Iraq could prevent military action by complying
with existing United Nations resolutions that were intended to curtail its
chemical, nuclear, biological and missile weapons programs.
The memo was divulged
earlier this month by the Sunday Times of London, four days before Blair's
re-election. It caused a stir in Britain, where the war in Iraq has been
deeply unpopular.
In the U.S., however,
the account has drawn only passing attention, even in Washington, where
the debate over prewar intelligence on Iraq once dogged the White House.
No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and Iraqi
scientists have told U.S. inspectors that any weapons Iraq did possess
were destroyed years ago.
Opponents of the war
and administration have launched e-mail campaigns to elevate the issue.
One Web site, DowningStreetMemo.com, encourages visitors to sign a
petition and "take action." Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) wrote a letter
earlier this month to the White House, signed by 89 House Democrats, that
expressed concern about the memo's revelations.
White House spokesman
Scott McClellan, asked Monday about the memo's implication that
intelligence was being "fixed" on Iraq, said, "The suggestion is just
flat-out wrong.
White House's Response
"Anyone who wants to
know how the intelligence was used only has to go back and read everything
that was said in public about the lead-up to the war," said McClellan,
noting that Bush was pursuing diplomatic negotiations with Iraq through
the United Nations into autumn 2003.
However, a commission
appointed by the president to investigate intelligence gathering that led
to the invasion concluded that all of the intelligence community's
information about the existence of biological or any other weapons of mass
destruction was "deeply flawed."
"The intelligence
community was absolutely uniform, and uniformly wrong, about the existence
of weapons of mass destruction. And they pushed that position," said Judge
Laurence Silberman, co-chairman of the commission.
Critics of the Bush
administration have long argued that Bush appeared intent on invading Iraq
long before Congress voted to authorize military action in October 2002 if
Hussein didn't abandon his alleged illegal weapons programs.
Former Sen. Bob
Graham of Florida, who was chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence
Committee when Democrats ruled, has written in his book, "Intelligence
Matters," about his visit to MacDill Air Force Base, home of the U.S.
Central Command, on Feb. 19, 2002. He was going for a status report on
Afghanistan, Graham wrote, but CENTCOM'S Gen. Tommy Franks called him
aside to tell him, "Senator, we are not engaged in a war in Afghanistan."
"Excuse me?"' Graham
replied.
"Military and
intelligence personnel are being redeployed to prepare for an action in
Iraq," Graham quoted Franks as saying.
Graham wrote: "I was
stunned. This was the first time I had been informed that the decision to
go to war with Iraq had not only been made but was being implemented, to
the substantial disadvantage of the war in Afghanistan."
17 May 2005
Reposted by
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