Monday, June 13, 2005
Did someone say memos?
While reading and posting about this second memo, I've added small sections of each article to whet the appetite. British memo faulted US postwar plan - Report to Blair concluded 'little thought' given - By Walter Pincus, Washington Post - June 13, 2005
The eight-page memo provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable and realized more clearly than their US counterparts the potential for the postinvasion instability that continues to plague Iraq.
In its introduction, the memo, ''Iraq: Conditions for Military Action," says US ''military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that ''little thought" has been given to ''the aftermath and how to shape it."
The White House took exception yesterday to the characterization of the British memo. ''There was significant postwar planning," said spokesman David Almacy. ''More importantly, the memo in question was written eight months before the war began; there was significant postwar planning in the time that elapsed."..
(I found this Boston News article at GoogleNews. The first time I read it, I was able to get right to the article. The second time, they made me register!)
It looks like there's a lot of information out there about the second leak. My thanks to Shakespeare's Sister. She sent an E-mail containing the following information:
The big news is that there has been another leaked British document, confirming that it was "necessary to create the conditions" for the legality of the Iraq War.
Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action - ...The paper, produced by the Cabinet Office on July 21, 2002, is incomplete because the last page is missing. The following is a transcript rather than the original document in order to protect the source.
The Times' coverage of it can be read here: Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’ - Michael Smith - 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 warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.
Shakespeare's Sister's post...Who, I wonder, is our friendly British Deep Throat? Whoever it is, I’m fucking glad they care more about holding our president accountable for his actions more than most of the members of our own government...
The Heretik has a round-up of those already writing about the issue....Journalist citizens and blogger patriots must do their part to point out what is now clear. The dark vision of this Bush Administration reveals an amoral clarity. By any means possible it has sought the amoral end of absolute power by amoral means. Let us not forget that the Bush administration ran on this lie of a war to secure power in the midterm elections of 2002. Now discredited talk of nuclear clouds and smoking clouds were used to secure power then and similar lies were used in the Presidential election of 2004. And what do we see now?...
Freiheit und Wissen's round-up...In the new memo, leaked from the British Cabinet Office and dated July 21, 2002, we learn that three months earlier while on a visit to Bush’s ranch in Texas, Blair had agreed to help Bush invade Iraq and that “it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action”....
St. Petersburg Times The American people have been had - By PHILIP GAILEY - The war has taken a dangerous turn - not in Iraq but here at home. It has lost the support of a majority of Americans...
...Bush may not realize it, but Amnesty International may have done him a big favor. The controversy the human rights group ignited over the treatment of Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has deflected the attention of journalists and war critics from an even more disturbing story - how all the president's talk about going to war as a last resort was just a ruse...
And Billmon has good advise regarding actions to take in tandem with contacting the media ....Prodding the media into revisiting a story it has collectively decided to ignore isn't impossible, but it's extremely hard. Once the journalistic herd has made up its collective mind (think of a pile of slime mold growing in your refrigerator) the overwhelming tendency is to move on to the next story. Even more than most people, reporters and editors live in a fog of sensory overload. New stories break every day, every hour, and decisions about whether to cover them are made on the fly, usually by people (i.e. editors) who are barely competent to unroll their socks in the morning...
As always, there are some very interesting posts at After Downing Street and one can go also visit the The Big Brass Alliance.
440 Blogs have joined the Big Brass Alliance
89 Congressional Leaders have signed John Conyers' Letter
450,978+ Citizens have demanded an investigation
The eight-page memo provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable and realized more clearly than their US counterparts the potential for the postinvasion instability that continues to plague Iraq.
In its introduction, the memo, ''Iraq: Conditions for Military Action," says US ''military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that ''little thought" has been given to ''the aftermath and how to shape it."
The White House took exception yesterday to the characterization of the British memo. ''There was significant postwar planning," said spokesman David Almacy. ''More importantly, the memo in question was written eight months before the war began; there was significant postwar planning in the time that elapsed."..
(I found this Boston News article at GoogleNews. The first time I read it, I was able to get right to the article. The second time, they made me register!)
It looks like there's a lot of information out there about the second leak. My thanks to Shakespeare's Sister. She sent an E-mail containing the following information:
The big news is that there has been another leaked British document, confirming that it was "necessary to create the conditions" for the legality of the Iraq War.
Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action - ...The paper, produced by the Cabinet Office on July 21, 2002, is incomplete because the last page is missing. The following is a transcript rather than the original document in order to protect the source.
The Times' coverage of it can be read here: Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’ - Michael Smith - 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 warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.
Shakespeare's Sister's post...Who, I wonder, is our friendly British Deep Throat? Whoever it is, I’m fucking glad they care more about holding our president accountable for his actions more than most of the members of our own government...
The Heretik has a round-up of those already writing about the issue....Journalist citizens and blogger patriots must do their part to point out what is now clear. The dark vision of this Bush Administration reveals an amoral clarity. By any means possible it has sought the amoral end of absolute power by amoral means. Let us not forget that the Bush administration ran on this lie of a war to secure power in the midterm elections of 2002. Now discredited talk of nuclear clouds and smoking clouds were used to secure power then and similar lies were used in the Presidential election of 2004. And what do we see now?...
Freiheit und Wissen's round-up...In the new memo, leaked from the British Cabinet Office and dated July 21, 2002, we learn that three months earlier while on a visit to Bush’s ranch in Texas, Blair had agreed to help Bush invade Iraq and that “it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action”....
St. Petersburg Times The American people have been had - By PHILIP GAILEY - The war has taken a dangerous turn - not in Iraq but here at home. It has lost the support of a majority of Americans...
...Bush may not realize it, but Amnesty International may have done him a big favor. The controversy the human rights group ignited over the treatment of Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has deflected the attention of journalists and war critics from an even more disturbing story - how all the president's talk about going to war as a last resort was just a ruse...
And Billmon has good advise regarding actions to take in tandem with contacting the media ....Prodding the media into revisiting a story it has collectively decided to ignore isn't impossible, but it's extremely hard. Once the journalistic herd has made up its collective mind (think of a pile of slime mold growing in your refrigerator) the overwhelming tendency is to move on to the next story. Even more than most people, reporters and editors live in a fog of sensory overload. New stories break every day, every hour, and decisions about whether to cover them are made on the fly, usually by people (i.e. editors) who are barely competent to unroll their socks in the morning...
As always, there are some very interesting posts at After Downing Street and one can go also visit the The Big Brass Alliance.
440 Blogs have joined the Big Brass Alliance
89 Congressional Leaders have signed John Conyers' Letter
450,978+ Citizens have demanded an investigation
