THE COUNTER-ATTACK when the Downing St. minutes thing explodes next week: [View All]

[Brotherjohn]

So Kerry will bring up the Downing St. minutes on the Senate floor Monday, and much press attention is promised (see numerous posts here earlier today).
(Yes, yes, I realize it may not 'explode'. But it IS building, and Kerry HAS said he will bring it up on the Senate floor Monday. Just being pro-active here.)

If this happens, the Right is likely to attack it in lock-step using the following talking points:
A) It's old news (ridiculous on it's face, and easily dismissed; if it's being talked about, it's not old news; and we're talking about WAR here)
B) "It's only one person's opinion... and a damned foreigner at that!

A suggested counter-attack, and context:

'Old news', huh? Just 'one person's opinion'? People, this document did not appear in a vacuum."

We already have had high-ranking officials from the Bush administration allege this SAME thing: they were determined to go to war and were 'fixing the facts and intelligence' to support war. Okay, you say, those were "disgruntled former employees" trying to sell books. But we're not just talking about some laid-off flunkies. We're talking about a full cabinet member and the head of counter-terrorism! In addition, unprecedented numbers of intelligence and military officials from all levels of government have alleged similar things."

"ADD TO THAT: We now KNOW that they were publicly making statements about the Iraqi threat that the CIA and others within our own intelligence community had privately warned them not to make. We KNOW they were stating things as unequivocal fact that were in fact open to great dispute, often by our own intelligence, and by inspectors on the ground in Iraq, at our request. We KNOW that they were stating things as unequivocal fact which we now know were not backed up by the available evidence at the time, and sometimes directly contradicted by it. Included in this are the two key points alleging the threat of a 'mushroom cloud': the alumnium tubes and the Niger uranium deal."

"We also now know that much of the information they presented to Congress to get the Iraq War Resolution passed was known to be doubtful at the time and subject to much more speculation than they let on. In other words, they misled Congress."

"NOW, we have official, undisputed, government documents, from the highest levels of government of our chief ally, detailing that all of these accusations are true."

"When does one began to say: 'Okay, maybe their critics were right'? 'Maybe they WERE bent on war and DID mislead everyone'? We should remember that every investigation conducted thus far has specifically avoided this question. But it is becoming clearer and clearer by the day that the Bush administration did indeed 'fix the facts and intelligence' to convince the American people and Congress that immediate war was necessary... a war which we now know, was in fact not necessary at all."