Memogate: More Documents Allege Fixing of Intel

[DLR'sCock]

Full Text of British Briefing Papers Revealed
More Evidence Intel Was Fixed
ThinkProgress.org

Monday 13 June 2005

As noted previously on ThinkProgress, the American media had failed to report on the British Briefing Papers - covered by the British media last September - that showed that the British felt the pre-war evidence for attacking Iraq was weak and that the U.S. lacked a plan to address the post-war situation. Using the Downing Street Minutes to bring light to these Briefing Papers, the Washington Post's Walter Pincus wrote a front-page story this weekend calling attention to the charges in those documents.

In a headline entitled, "Memo: U.S. Lacked Full Postwar Iraq Plan," Pincus uncovered a British memo warning of post-war instability that would arise because the Bush administration was unrealistic about the post-war phase. A number of the Papers in the Pincus article are attached below. As one of the Papers warns, the U.S. had no plans for "what happens on the morning after [attacking Iraq]."

The main thrust of the British Briefing Papers certainly focused on the Bush administration's failure to plan, but there's another key point in the Papers which Pincus chose not to highlight, a point which meshes well with the revelations in the Downing Street Minutes. As you know, the Downing Street Minutes said the Bush administration "fixed" the intelligence around its policy of attacking Iraq. The British Briefing Papers lend further credence to this point.

British Knew Iraqi WMD Were Not a Threat: "There is no greater threat now that [Saddam] will use WMD than there has been in recent years, so continuing containment is an option." [Iraq: Options Paper]

Evidence Did Not Show Much Advance In Iraq's Weapons Programs: "Even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on [the] nuclear, missile or CW/BW fronts: the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up." [Ricketts Paper, 3/22/02]

Evidence Was Thin on Iraq/Al Qaeda Ties: "US is scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al [Qaida] is so far frankly unconvincing." [Ricketts Paper, 3/22/02]

"No Credible Evidence" On Iraq/Al Qaeda Link: "There has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL and Al Qaida." [Straw Paper, 3/25/02]

Wolfowitz Knew Supposed Iraq/Al Qaeda Link Was Weak: Wolfowitz said that "there might be doubt about the alleged meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, and Iraqi intelligence (did we, he asked, know anything more about this meeting?)." [Meyer Paper, 3/18/02]

The full British Briefing Papers have been attached below. When reading them, keep in mind that these Papers were written approximately a full year before the invasion of Iraq. The Papers present a shockingly accurate forecast of what has transpired in the years since, and suggest the Bush administration chose to ignore the advice of our key ally when it came to dealing with Iraq.

British Iraq Options Paper
Manning Paper
Meyer Paper
Ricketts Paper
Straw Paper
British Legal Background Paper





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Go to Original

Could Memo Sink Bush?
By Dave Richardson
The Times Herald-Record UK


Monday 13 June 2005

Hinchey, others demand answers on Downing Street Memo.
What if President Bush lied to Congress and the American people, used those lies to gain congressional approval for military action against Iraq and launched a war that killed 1,700 Americans and tens of thousands of others?

That might have been a hypothetical question a month ago; it might not be hypothetical anymore.

In fact, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, says the answer to the question could lead to the impeachment of President Bush.

The release of an explosive piece of paper called the Downing Street Memo has Hinchey, almost 90 members of Congress and people around the world in an uproar.

The memo provides the closest thing to proof Bush may have lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and led the nation into an unnecessary war, Hinchey and others say.

"Attacking Iraq was something the administration focused on from the very beginning," Hinchey said. "Bush made the policy, then altered, twisted and distorted the facts to fit the policy."

According to published reports in Britain, the Downing Street Memo, written in July, 2002 details a conversation in which British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British intelligence, and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw discuss a meeting held with U.S. officials on Iraq.

In the memo, Dearlove warns Blair that Bush had already decided to attack Iraq - months before Bush brought the question to the U.N., and while he continued to deny, both to Congress and publicly, any plans to do so. Dearlove warned that Bush sought to justify that policy by fabricating evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi links to Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"There was a perceptible shift in attitude," the memo quotes Dearlove as saying. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.

"But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy."

The Times of London made the memo public May 1, and has continued to hammer it in its pages.

High-ranking current and former members of both in the British and U.S. governments have reportedly confirmed the memo's authenticity.

Until now, the story has been largely ignored by the U.S. news media and dismissed by the Bush administration. But it has prompted massive interest and widespread outrage abroad and is a hot topic on internet blogs.

In the U.S., that outrage is also growing.

On May 5, Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, sent a letter to Bush demanding answers about the memo.

"If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own administration," Conyers wrote.

The letter was signed by 88 other members of Congress. Conyers has at least 90,000 signatures on a petition demanding the same, and hopes to have more than 500,000 soon.

Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy has a similar petition, and California Rep. Maxine Waters has vowed to introduce daily amendments to pending House legislation demanding Bush answer questions raised by the memo.

Hinchey signed Conyers' letter, and had harsh words for Bush. "The Downing Street Memo confirms a lot of information coming from insiders in the administration and the intelligence agencies, and says clearly that they fixed the facts around the policy," Hinchey said.

So far there has been no official response to Conyers' letter.

"They are trying to ignore the letter, but we will be back to them on this. We will continue to press this," Hinchey said. "It's outrageous. It goes against everything this country stands for."

Representatives of both Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton declined to comment directly on the memo or on the House response to it.

Still, calls for a congressional inquiry into the questions raised by the memo are growing louder, with some even discussing a Bush impeachment.

"If the president intentionally twisted the facts about the Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraq war, and lied to Congress about it, and then elicited authorization from Congress to launch a war that's caused the deaths of 1,700 U.S. men and women along with tens of thousands of others, that is definitely an impeachable offense," Hinchey said.

Downing Street Excerpts

Key excerpts from the Downing Street Memo, dated July 23, 2002, as reported May 1 in the Times of London. The memo details a conversation between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and key ministers about a meeting held with U.S. officials on Iraq months before the Bush administration officially decided to go to war.

"Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and (weapons of mass destruction.) But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy."

"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."

"There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath of the war."

Yesterday, the Times released details of a briefing paper written two days before the Downing Street memo. The Times reported:

"Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal."
"The briefing paper warned that regime-change was not a legal option, the U.S. and Britain would find it 'necessary to create the conditions' to make the invasion legal."

[DLR'sCock]

ummm bump....

[Hardrock69]

http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22773

[academic punk]

What does this have to do with that missing girl in Aruba? Anything???

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Hardrock69
http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22773

Cock's thread was open first so FORD has no choice but to close yours since it is a dupe.

Right FORD? ;)

:gulp:

[academic punk]

For the record, BBB, the recent posts I added to warhams Howard Dean thread were put there b/c it has been expressed by FORD that he doesn't want and isn't beneficial for the site and forum to have multiple existing threads on the same subject.

But I'm still wondering what this has to do with the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie movie.

[DLR'sCock]

New Memos Detail Early Plans for Invading Iraq
By John Daniszewski
The Los Angeles Times

Wednesday 15 June 2005

British officials believed the US favored military force a year before the war, documents show.
London - In March 2002, the Bush administration had just begun to publicly raise the possibility of confronting Iraq. But behind the scenes, officials already were deeply engaged in seeking ways to justify an invasion, newly revealed British memos indicate.

Foreshadowing developments in the year before the war started, British officials emphasized the importance of U.N. diplomacy, which they said might force Saddam Hussein into a misstep. They also suggested that confronting the Iraqi leader be cast as an effort to prevent him from using weapons of mass destruction or giving them to terrorists.

The documents help flesh out the background to the formerly top-secret "Downing Street memo" published in the Sunday Times of London last month, which said that top British officials were told eight months before the war began that military action was "seen as inevitable." President Bush and his main ally in the war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have long maintained that they had not made up their minds to go to war at that stage.

"Nothing could be farther from the truth," Bush said last week, responding to a question about the July 23, 2002, memo. "Both of us didn't want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Publication of the Downing Street memo at the height of Britain's election campaign at first garnered little notice in U.S. media or other British newspapers. But in the weeks that followed, anger has grown among war critics, who contend that the document proves the Bush administration had already decided on military action, even while U.S. officials were saying that war was a last resort.

The new documents indicate that top British officials believed that by March 2002, Washington was already leaning heavily toward toppling Hussein by military force. Condoleezza Rice, the current secretary of State who was then Bush's national security advisor, was described as enthusiastic about "regime change."

Although British officials said in the documents that they did not think Iraq's weapons programs posed an immediate threat and that they were dubious of any claimed links between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda, they indicated that they were willing to join in a campaign to topple Hussein as long as the plan would succeed and was handled with political and legal care.

The documents contain little discussion about whether to mount a military campaign. The focus instead is on how the campaign should be presented to win the widest support and the importance for Britain of working through the United Nations so an invasion could be seen as legal under international law.

Michael Smith, the defense writer for the Times of London who revealed the Downing Street minutes in a story May 1, provided a full text of the six new documents to the Los Angeles Times.

Portions of the new documents, all labeled "secret" or "confidential," have appeared previously in two British newspapers, the Times of London and the Telegraph. Blair's government has not challenged their authenticity.

They cover a period when reports had begun appearing that the Bush administration was forming plans to go after Hussein in the next phase of its "war on terrorism." A Feb. 10, 2002, article in the Los Angeles Times, for instance, said that the U.S. was considering action against Hussein that might require a massive number of U.S. troops.

Published accounts, including those by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and former U.S. counter-terrorism chief Richard A. Clarke, said that Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld began focusing on Iraq soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

In his Jan. 29, 2002, State of the Union address, Bush described Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of an "axis of evil."

The documents present a picture of a U.S. government fed up with the policy of containing Iraq, skeptical of the U.N. and focused on ousting Hussein.

Blair's advisors were weighing how Britain could participate in a war. The need to establish a policy on Iraq led to a flurry of meetings between senior U.S. and British officials and internal British government memos in advance of a Bush-Blair summit in April 2002 at the president's ranch near Crawford, Texas. (According to one of the subsequent documents that has been leaked, a British Cabinet briefing paper written in July 2002, Blair gave Bush a conditional commitment at the Texas summit to support military action to remove Hussein.)

In one memorandum, dated March 14, 2002, and labeled "secret - strictly personal," Blair's chief foreign policy advisor, David Manning, described to the prime minister a dinner he had had with Rice.

"We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq," wrote Manning, now the British ambassador to the U.S. "It is clear that Bush is grateful for your [Blair's] 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 different from 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."

The memo went on to say:

"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 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 US/allied military campaign with internal opposition (assuming there is any);


What happens the morning after?"
Manning told Blair that given Bush's eagerness for British backing, the prime minister would have "real influence" on the public relations strategy, on the issue of encouraging the United States to go first to the United Nations and on any U.S. military planning.

Manning said it could prove helpful if Hussein refused to allow renewed U.N. weapons inspections.

"The issue of weapons inspectors must be handled in a way that would persuade Europe and wider opinion that the U.S. was conscious of the international framework, and the insistence of many countries on the need for a legal basis. Renewed refusal by Saddam to accept unfettered inspections would be a powerful argument," Manning wrote Blair.

Four days after the Manning memo, Christopher Meyer, then the British ambassador in Washington, wrote to Manning about a lunch he had with Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the U.S. deputy secretary of Defense and a leading proponent in the administration of confronting Hussein. Meyer said in the memo that he had told Wolfowitz that U.N. pressure and weapons inspections could be used to trip up Hussein.

"We backed regime change," he wrote, "but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe."

Meyer wrote that he had argued that Washington could go it alone if it wanted to. "But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrong-foot Saddam on the inspectors and the [U.N. Security Council resolutions] and the critical importance of the [Middle East peace process] as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy. If all this could be accomplished skillfully, we were fairly confident that a number of countries would come on board."

Another memo, from British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on March 22, 2002, bluntly stated that the case against Hussein was weak because the Iraqi leader was not accelerating his weapons programs and there was scant proof of links to Al Qaeda.

"What has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September," Ricketts wrote. "Attempts to claim otherwise publicly will increase skepticism about our case….

"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda is so far frankly unconvincing," he said.

Ricketts said that other countries such as Iran appeared closer to getting nuclear weapons, and that arguing for regime change in Iraq alone "does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam." That was why the issue of weapons of mass destruction was vital, he said.

"Much better, as you [Straw] have suggested, to make the objective ending the threat to the international community from Iraqi WMD before Saddam uses it or gives it to terrorists," he said. A U.N. Security Council resolution demanding renewal of weapons inspections, he says, would be a "win/win."

"Either [Hussein] against all the odds allows Inspectors to operate freely, in which case we can further hobble his WMD programs, or he blocks/hinders, and we are on stronger grounds for switching to other methods," he wrote.

The arguments that Iraq had illegal, hidden weapons of mass destruction, programs to develop more of them, and that it might give them to terrorists were to become some of the Bush administration's chief reasons for the war. When no weapons were found, the administration blamed faulty intelligence and said the war still was justified because it ended Hussein's brutal dictatorship and allowed an emerging democratic government.

In November 2002, the U.S. and Britain managed to get a toughly worded resolution through the Security Council that reintroduced arms inspectors into Iraq for the first time since 1998. However, it fell short of authorizing the use of force against Hussein's government.

Straw, writing to Blair on March 25, 2002, expressed concern about a lack of support among members of Parliament from the governing Labor Party.

"Colleagues know that Saddam and the Iraqi regime are bad," he wrote. "But we have a long way to go to convince them as to: The scale of the threat from Iraq, and why this has got worse recently; what distinguishes the Iraqi threat from that of e.g. Iran and North Korea so as to justify military action; the justification for any military action in terms of international law; and whether the consequences really would be a compliant, law-abiding replacement government.

"Regime change per se is no justification for military action; it could form part of the method of any strategy, but not a goal," he said. "Elimination of Iraq's WMD capacity has to be the goal."

The new documents also include an earlier 10-page options paper, dated March 8, 2002, from the overseas and defense secretariat of the Cabinet Office, sketching out options for dealing with Iraq. The thrust of the memo was that the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War were likely to fail, and that, in any case, the U.S. had already given up on them.

"The U.S. has lost confidence in containment," the document said. "Some in government want Saddam removed. The success of Operation Enduring Freedom [the military code name for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan], distrust of U.N. sanctions and inspection regimes, and unfinished business from 1991 are all factors.

"Washington believes the legal basis for an attack already exists. Nor will it necessarily be governed by wider political factors. The U.S. may be willing to work with a smaller coalition than we think desirable," it said.

The paper said the British view was that any invasion for the purpose of regime change "has no basis under international law."

The best way to justify military action, it said, would be to convince the Security Council that Iraq was in breach of its post-Gulf War obligations to eliminate its store of weapons of mass destruction.

The document appeared to rule out any action in Iraq short of an invasion.

"In sum, despite the considerable difficulties, the use of overriding force in a ground campaign is the only option that we can be confident will remove Saddam and bring Iraq back into the international community," it said.

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[Hardrock69]

Link for the above post.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-britmemos15jun15,0,3650829.story?coll=la-home-headlines