The Downing St. Memo

The Downing St. Memo seems finally to be gaining some acknowledgement in the major media. The memo is a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. It indicates that WMD's (weapons of mass destruction) were a trumped up, essentially baseless charge which the Bush administration would knowingly use to invade Iraq, with the decision on this being made early on, so that a later appeal to the U.N. process would basically be a sham formality in that the decision for invasion had already made. The "facts", therefore, would need to be made to fit this new reality. The following is an exerpt from the initial part of the document, as released by the Times of London, May 1, 2005:

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. 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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action...


The full memo is available at:

www.downingstreetmemo.com/memo.html

and there is much, much more damning information in there.

Representative John Conyers has written a letter on the issue to the President, inquiring about the issues raised in this document, and requesting answers on behalf of the American people.

Please, please, please, go to:

www.johnconyers.com

and electronically sign this letter, which Rep. Conyers plans on personally delivering to the President after 100,000 signatures have been gathered, and I believe I heard on the Randi Rhodes Radio Show that this may be on June 17, 2005. Help to apply the pressure; we need to get to the bottom of this if we want to maintain our democracy.