Juan Cole in Salon re Downing Street Memo: "The Lies That Led to War"

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/19/lies/print.html

The lies that led to war

A leaked British memo, and other documents, make it clear that Bush intended all along to invade Iraq -- and lied about it to the American people. The full gravity of his offense has not yet sunk in.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Juan Cole


May 19, 2005  |  When Newsweek's source admitted that he had misidentified the government document in which he had seen an account of Quran desecration at Guantánamo prison, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?"

Di Rita could have said the same things about his bosses in the Bush administration.

Tens of thousands of people are dead in Iraq, including more than 1,600 U.S. soldiers and Marines, because of false allegations made by President George W. Bush and Di Rita's more immediate boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and equally imaginary active nuclear weapons program. Bush, Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly made unfounded allegations that led to the continuing disaster in Iraq, much of which is now an economic and military no man's land beset by bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and political gridlock.

And we now know, thanks to a leaked British memo concerning the head of British intelligence, that the Bush administration -- contrary to its explicit denials -- had already made up its mind to attack Iraq and "fixed" those bogus allegations to support its decision. In short, Bush and his top officials lied about Iraq.

<>The media circus around the Newsweek story arrived in time to further divert attention from the explosive British memorandum. Although the leaked Downing Street memo, published by the London Times on May 1, revealed the deeply dishonest and manipulative way that the Bush administration took the United States (and the United Kingdom) to war against Iraq, the American press corps studiously ignored it for two weeks.

more...nice to see some in the media not willing to let the Downing Street Memo revelations die

[9119495]

1. Nice find. Soon historians will be calling this our generation's Gulf

of Tonkin incident.

Nominated.

[AirAmFan]

2. In other words, * came into office like a 6-year old having a hissy fit,

crying, stamping his feet, tearing his cowboy suit, and yelling, "I want my WAR!"

[Roland99]

3. I'd forgotten about this Guardian article: Bush and Blair made secret pact

Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war

· Decision came nine days after 9/11
· Ex-ambassador reveals discussion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1185438,00.html

President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.

According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.

It was clear, Meyer says, 'that when we did come back to Iraq it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions'. Elsewhere in his interview, Meyer says Blair always believed it was unlikely that Saddam would be removed from power or give up his weapons of mass destruction without a war.

Faced with this prospect of a further war, he adds, Blair 'said nothing to demur'.

[flpoljunkie]

5. Thanks for this article. It's pretty damn clear and ignored by our media.

[understandinglife]

4. "In other times, this might have been an impeachable offense." In_DEED.

A primer on why we need to recognize "America" as history:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3688434

Peace.


www.missionnotaccomplished.us - Be it MNA Day 3 or 8 or 15 or .... the day will come when 10s of millions of Americans and others stop their typical activities for 24 hours and urge 10 times that many to join should another MNA Day be required. On that glorious day what we once called "America" will emerge.

[TheGunslinger]

6. DiRita is like a more Rovian version of McLIEllan