Random Notes

Eleven days after LA Times Editiorial and Opinion Page Editor Michael Kinsley pooh-poohed the Downing Street Memo ["The Left Gets A Memo"], the Times has continued to ignore the issues they raise in its news coverage, but now they have run a commentary by Michael Smith, the British reporter who broke the story for the London Sunday Times.

Smith reports on receiving two sets of memos. The first, which he received nine months ago when he worked for the London Daily Telegraph, and was still a staunch war supporter, "were to change completely my opinion of the decision to go to war and the honesty of Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush." They dealt with the period before Bush and Blair held a summit in Crawford, Texas in early April, 2002.

The second batch came from a different source, when he was writing for a different paper, and related to Blair's war Cabinet meeting on July 23, 2002. He writes:

I did not then regard the now-infamous memo — the one that includes the minutes of the July 23 meeting — as the most important. My main article focused on the separate briefing paper for those taking part, prepared beforehand by Cabinet Office experts.

It said that Blair agreed at Crawford that "the UK would support military action to bring about regime change." Because this was illegal, the officials noted, it was "necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action."

But Downing Street had a "clever" plan that it hoped would trap Hussein into giving the allies the excuse they needed to go to war. It would persuade the U.N. Security Council to give the Iraqi leader an ultimatum to let in the weapons inspectors.

Although Blair and Bush still insist the decision to go to the U.N. was about averting war, one memo states that it was, in fact, about "wrong-footing" Hussein into giving them a legal justification for war.

Smith goes on to describe how the increase in bombing Iraq was intended to provoke Iraq into a counter-attack that could then justify all-out war:

American media coverage of the Downing Street memo has largely focused on the assertion by Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, that war was seen as inevitable in Washington, where "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

But another part of the memo is arguably more important. It quotes British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying that "the U.S. had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime." This we now realize was Plan B.

Put simply, U.S. aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were dropping a lot more bombs in the hope of provoking a reaction that would give the allies an excuse to carry out a full-scale bombing campaign, an air war, the first stage of the conflict.

British government figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that although virtually none were used in March and April, an average of 10 tons a month were dropped between May and August.

But these initial "spikes of activity" didn't have the desired effect. The Iraqis didn't retaliate. They didn't provide the excuse Bush and Blair needed. So at the end of August, the allies dramatically intensified the bombing into what was effectively the initial air war.

The number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq by allied aircraft shot up to 54.6 tons in September alone, with the increased rates continuing into 2003.

In other words, Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq.

The way in which the intelligence was "fixed" to justify war is old news.

The real news is the shady April 2002 deal to go to war, the cynical use of the U.N. to provide an excuse, and the secret, illegal air war without the backing of Congress.

This point is vitally important, of course. It's another nail in the coffin for Bush.

Smith's analysis only scratches the surface, however, when it comes to the issue of the media. The official corporate media spin has been that the Downing Street Memo contains "nothing new." And in a sense they're right--more right than he is. Everything that's in them was obvious to any clear-headed observer--incuding the increase in bombing Iraq, and the purpose behind it.

A similarly transparently false strategy was used in funding the terrorist war on Nicaraugua in the early 1980s. It began with the rationale of interdicting arms flowing from Nicaragua to the rebels in El Salvador. But the two countries do not share a land border, and terrorists we funded were based in Honduras--which already had an army we provided aid to that could interdict any arms flow through its territory. The terrorists we funded did nothing to stop arms flow through Honduras. They used Honduras as a base for raids on civilian targets in Nicaragua--terrorizing the population in an attempt to undermine support for the government. After almost two years of charade, the rationale was simply dropped. It was no longer needed for propaganda purposes.

The situation was the similar with Iraq. The lies were right in front of us for all to see. But Bush, Blair and the same official corporate media were all busy telling us, "Who are you going to believe, us or your own lying eyes?"

On September 11, 2002, USA Today ran a story, "Iraq course set from tight White House circle", which stated as fact:

President Bush's determination to oust Iraq's Saddam
Hussein by military force if necessary was set last fall without a formal
decision-making meeting or the intelligence assessment that customarily
precedes such a momentous decision.

No less a figure than Condi Rice confirmed their story:

Among the key findings:

* The decision to target Saddam ''kind of evolved, but it's not clear and neat,''
a senior administration official says, calling it ''policymaking by osmosis.''

''There wasn't a flash moment. There's no decision meeting,'' national security
adviser Condoleezza Rice says. ''But Iraq had been on the radar screen --
that it was a danger and that it was something you were going to have to deal
with eventually . . . before Sept. 11, because we knew that this was a
problem.''

That story ran in one of America's few national newspapers, yet it was utterly ignored then, and remains utterly ignored today. This behavior pattern clearly shows the corporate media's complicity in taking us to war illegally. They knew we were being lied to, and they looked away at best, and repeated the lies as fact at worst. Is there any wonder why they are reluctant to investigate?

Now that the Times has printed Michael Smith's account as commentary, will they follow up with news coverage? Will they have their national reporters ask the Administration the tough questions that activists and Congressmembers have already put repeatedly without getting answers? And if the Administration refuses to answer, or responds with bald-faced lies, will they simply print that that is what the Administration has done? Or will they continue--actively or passively--to be part of the coverup?

At a joint press conference on June 7, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair both blatantly lied in response to a question about the Downing Street Memo (DSM). Rather than respond to the substance of the memo itself, they repeated the very propaganda line which minutes reveal as a deliberate falsehood. Bush and Blair did not even try to discredit the minutes themselves, which is the only possible way to refute the underlying claim.

The question asked was, "On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?"

Naturally, both men responded to the ineptly-stated question by denying everything. "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all," said Blair.

But the memo itself—minutes of a meeting Blair held with his top advisors on July 23, 2002—said, "C [British intelligence chief Sir Richard Dearlove] reported on his recent talks in Washington.... 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."

Blair made no attempt to explain why the meeting minutes directly contradict him.

"And somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There's nothing farther from the truth," added Bush.

That somebody, Sir Richard Dearlove, is the head of MI6, the British equivalent of the CIA. Bush made no attempt to justify his accusation that Britain's chief of national intelligence is a liar.

Bush also said, "[W]e worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully, take a -- put a united front up to Saddam Hussein, and say, the world speaks, and he ignored the world. Remember, 1441 passed the Security Council unanimously." Not only is this statement contradicted by the Downing Street Memo, it also lies about Saddam's response: he allowed the weapons inspectors back into Iraq, essentially complying with Resolution 1441.

At a joint press conference on June 7, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair both blatantly lied in response to a question about the Downing Street Memo. Here is the text of the question and response. Analysis to follow:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Steve.

Q Thank you, sir. On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Well, I can respond to that very easily. No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all. And let me remind you that that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations. Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me. And the fact is we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution, to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn't do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action.

But all the way through that period of time, we were trying to look for a way of managing to resolve this without conflict. As it happened, we weren't able to do that because -- as I think was very clear -- there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked, or the way that he acted.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I -- you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. I'm not sure who "they dropped it out" is, but -- I'm not suggesting that you all dropped it out there. (Laughter.) And somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There's nothing farther from the truth.

My conversation with the Prime Minister was, how could we do this peacefully, what could we do. And this meeting, evidently, that took place in London happened before we even went to the United Nations -- or I went to the United Nations. And so it's -- look, both us of didn't want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option. The consequences of committing the military are -- are very difficult. The hardest things I do as the President is to try to comfort families who've lost a loved one in combat. It's the last option that the President must have -- and it's the last option I know my friend had, as well.

And so we worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully, take a -- put a united front up to Saddam Hussein, and say, the world speaks, and he ignored the world. Remember, 1441 passed the Security Council unanimously. He made the decision. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.

Marine recruiters escalated from harrassment to outright kidnapping in pursuit of Axel Cobb, a recent high graduate in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, a small town 65 miles north of Seattle, according to a published account by Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Susan Paynter.

It began with "a relentless barrage of calls" when he turned 17. His mother, Marcia, tried using call blocking. (Axel's father, a Marine Corps Vietnam Vet, died when he was 4.) "And that's when she learned her first hard lesson," Paynter wrote. "You can't block calls from the government, her server said." The harrassing phone calls continued for over a year. Then:

The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."

The next weekend, when his mother was out of town, Axel was hounded at home, then at work, where he was browbeaten into taking a ride. He had no idea he would not be going home that night. They drove him to Seattle, 65 miles away. He was allowed to sleep a few hours in a motel. Then:

At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."

By then Marcia had "freaked out."

She had tried to contact her son, but the Marines had confiscated his cell phone, "so he wouldn't be distracted during tests."

The whole chilling story is told here.

If this is what the Marines will do to an 18-year old American kid they're trying to recruit, is it any wonder what they'll do to "the enemy"?

Somebody needs to tell them, "No means no."

And if the American people will not willingly fight a war, it obviously should not be fought. Let those who believe in it so ferverently go sign up themselves. And leave the Axel Cobbs of America alone.

Raw Story reports that Senator Ted Kennedy issued a statement on the Downing Street Minutes on Tuesday, June 7. "Kennedy becomes the first senator to raise the issue in the Senate, after earlier reports that Massachusetts' junior senator, John Kerry, would speak about the minutes in Washington," Raw Story reported.

In his statement, Kennedy said:

"The contents of the Downing Street Minutes confirm that the Bush Administration was determined to go to war in Iraq, regardless of whether there was any credible justification for doing so. The Administration distorted and misrepresented the intelligence in its attempt to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorists of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and with weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have.

"In addition, the Downing Street Minutes also confirm what has long been obvious – that the timing of the war was linked to the 2002 Congressional elections, and that the Administration’s planning for post-war Iraq was incompetent in all its aspects. The current continuing crisis is a direct result of that incompetence."

At TomKennedy.com:

• Full text
• email form to ask your Senator to join Kennedy's call.

Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) "sat in shock and awe for the better part of an hour, as anchors Zain Verjee and Jim Clancy did nothing more than deliver the news like it's supposed to be done," as CNN began domestically broadcasting its news program "Your World Today" that airs regularly on CNN International.

"Stunned by 15 straight minutes of actual news, we heard an equally incredulous CJR colleague in the background quip, 'It's weird to be watching news.' And indeed it was."

Kerry Speaks Out; Impeachment Inquiry Sought; Conyers Seeks Citizen Support

There have been 3 significant developments since RLN's story on the Downing Street Memo,
"Smoking Gun Memo Exposes Bush's Iraq War Lies" was written:

• Congressmember John Conyers is seeking 100,000 citizen signaturres for a letter to Bush echoing the demands of the letter he sent with 89 other Congressmembers.
  
• A campaign has been launched to urge Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. Constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, sent a memo to that effect to Congressmember John Conyers. The campaign is being speaheaded by a coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups, including Democrats.com, Global Exchange, Code Pink, Gold Star Families for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America, Veterans for Peace, Democracy Rising, Rainbow Push, Velvet Revolution, and Justice Through Music.
  
  In the memo, Bonifaz wrote:
  If the evidence revealed by the Downing Street Memo is true, then the President's submission of his March 18, 2003 letter and report to the United States Congress would violate federal criminal law, including: the federal anti-conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, which makes it a felony "to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose..."; and The False Statements Accountability Act of 1996, 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which makes it a felony to issue knowingly and willfully false statements to the United States Congress.
  
  The United States House of Representatives has a constitutional duty to investigate fully and comprehensively the evidence revealed by the Downing Street Memo and other related evidence and to determine whether there are sufficient grounds to impeach George W. Bush, the President of the United States. A Resolution of Inquiry is the appropriate first step in launching this investigation.
  
  
• Senator John Kerry has become the first Senator to speak out about the Downing Street Memo. A story in the Standard-Times of Massachussettes reported:
  Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday called on Americans to be more aware of the "bait and switch" Iraq war and the "hollowing out" of the Army in the pursuit of a mistaken policy....
  
  Sen. Kerry puzzled over the apparent lack of interest by Americans in the Iraq war and the near silence in the U.S. mass media about the so-called Downing Street Memo....
  
  "When I go back (to Washington) on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," he said of the memo, which has not been disputed by either the British or American governments. "I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home. And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."

Originally published in London Sunday Times, the Downing Street Memo contains minutes of a meeting in which British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisors discuss as undisputed fact the Bush Administration determination to invade Iraq, and create whatever pretext is necessary to justify it. The memo was written by Mathheew Rycroft, a Downing Street foreign policy aide. The Bush Administration has now had one full month to dispute the authenticity of the memo and has not done so. In the memo, "C" refers to Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, Britain's CIA. Here is the complete text:

---

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.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.

(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.

(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

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. The situation might of course change.

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.

John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Conclusions:

(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.

(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.

(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.

(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.

He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.

(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.

(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.

(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT