Bush-Blair memo shows war penciled in early

[struggle4progress]

Palm Beach Post Editorial

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Jan. 31, 2003, President Bush suggested disguising a U.S. plane with United Nations markings and flying it over Iraq to see if Saddam Hussein would shoot at it. That doesn't sound as if Mr. Bush was trying to avoid a war.

In fact, a five-page memo on the meeting, written by a top adviser to Mr. Blair and obtained by The New York Times and others, makes it sound as though Mr. Bush had made up his mind to invade. "The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," the memo noted. The war began on March 19. The author, David Manning, who was at the meeting, also said it was evident that "our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning."

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair were concerned that U.N. inspectors had found no weapons of mass destruction. But they were concerned mostly from a public relations standpoint. They wanted some trigger to justify the invasion. That's when, the memo says, Mr. Bush suggested "flying U-2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," because "if Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

Such an attack by Hussein could have led the U.N. to pass a second resolution specifically authorizing an invasion - a resolution Mr. Bush wanted but never got. At that Jan. 31 meeting, though, he made clear to Mr. Blair that he intended to invade even without another resolution.
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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2006/04/01/m16a_bushblair_edit_0401.html

[rodeodance]

1. good to see this in the press.

[otohara]

2. So Few Papers

said a word about this latest memo.