http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_2754222Critics of the war in Iraq have been stewing for weeks about a 2002 British government memo that was leaked during Prime Minister Tony Blair's recent re-election campaign.
The classified memo, written by Blair aide Matthew Rycroft, indicated that President Bush decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein by summer 2002, months before he publicly gave reasons for invading Iraq. The memo also said Bush was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy. "The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," it read. But the case against Hussein was thin, the memo said; Iraq was less of a threat than Iran or North Korea. (The memo recorded a meeting of Blair foreign-policy advisors.)
The memo has energized critics of the war. Last week, 89 congressional Democrats wrote the president demanding to know whether the memo accurately portrayed Bush's pre-war thinking. The White House has not responded.
The American media has been castigated for not giving more prominence to the British memo, but it reinforces what we already know from other sources. Former U.S. security adviser Richard Clarke has said Bush came into office in 2001 obsessed with Iraq. U.S. inspectors never found weapons of mass destruction. Last summer, a panel that investigated U.S. intelligence
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After reading this editorial, does it strike you odd that it completely lets Bush off the hook ??