Tuesday, June 14, 2005

More Downing Street Memos

More British memos on pre-Iraq war concerns

Sunday, I acquired what appear to be copies of these memos that have now been verified by NBC News, and transcribed and incompletely made available by Raw Story, http://www.rawstory.com/.

They are damning. That's all I have to say about the content. I think there's a prima facie case -basically, sufficient information to make an inquiry reasonable.

What may be surprising is that this does not appear to be the initial leak of these documents.

The quotes from

Secret papers show Blair was warned of Iraq chaos, published in late 2004, all seem to match text in the longest of the PDFs, ods020308.pdf, allegedly the "options paper" provided by the Overseas and Defence Secretariat.

Bush and Blair:Secrets and Lies, published 19 Sept 2004, has direct quotes matching that PDF and the documents straw020325.pdf, ricketts020322.pdf, and manning020314.pdf (at great length).

Blair told Bush he 'would not budge' in support for war, also published 19 Sept 2004, has quotes matching as well, but not nearly as thoroughly.

'Failure is not an option, but it doesn't mean they will avoid it', published 18 Sept 2004, includes screenshots of documents that look the same, and I note that the author of that article is that same as the first article I list above, and includes extensive quotes matching manning020314.pdf.

Iraq: The British legal background
The Iraq options paper | PDF
After axis of evil, British foreign secretary says Iraq case weak
Condi committed to regime change in 2002
The British legal background
Admission that Iraq WMD program hadn't changed | PDF
The 'need to wrongfoot' Saddam on inspectors | PDF

The Downing Street Memo:
Minutes of Prime Minister's Meeting Held 23 July 2002.

The briefing paper provided preparatory to that meeting:
IRAQ: CONDITIONS FOR MILITARY ACTION (A Note by Officials)

The "New" Downing Street Memos:


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