The Downing Street Memo, or How I Learned that Bush Lied

In the lead-up to war, the main emphasis was placed on Saddam's gathering threat because he was developing (or had) weapons of mass destruction) or because he was linked to terrorism. Neither of those were credible then, and since the leaking of the minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his advisors in July 2002, it appears that major policy makers in both the U.K. and the U.S. knew that there was little in the way of firm information on which to base these claims. The memo, which was leaked during the recent British elections, also confirm that the British Attorney-General was worried that the basis for war on which the U.S. and U.K. were relying, particularly those discussed behind closed doors, was illegal by the standard of international law. The minutes state, "The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult" (p. 2). The memo also states that the Bush Administration indicated that "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" (p. 1). Because of these new revelations, it seems prudent that at least a commission be appointed to investigate whether the policy of war was decided first and the facts were then molded to support that policy. If that is the case, a large segment of the Bush Administration should be removed from office. However, with a lock-step Republican party in control of Congress & the White House, it is highly unlikely that anything will ever come of these revelations. Most likely, they will be buried by the Administration by some new "victory" or terror alert.