Link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/19/INGEOD8MJR1.DTL
Snip: <- Paul Rogat Loeb
Sunday, June 19, 2005
It's bad enough that the Bush administration had so little
international support for the Iraqi war that its "coalition of the
willing" meant the United States, Britain, and the equivalent of a
child's imaginary friends.
It's even worse that, as the British Downing Street memo confirms,
the administration had so little evidence of real threats that
officials knew from the start that they were going to have to
manufacture excuses to go to war. What's more damning still is that
they effectively began this war even before the congressional vote.
This transcript of a July 23, 2002, British prime minister's meeting,
whose legitimacy the British government confirms, details the Bush
administration's early intention to go to war against Iraq.
"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military
action, even if the timing was not yet decided," the document
says. "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." As the document states, "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the policy."
The document is damning, particularly coupled with the testimony of
former Bush ghostwriter Mickey Herskowitz that Bush was talking about
invading Iraq as early as 1999. But it's even more disturbing as we
start learning that this administration began actively fighting the
Iraq war well in advance of the March 2003 official attack -- before
both congressional authorization in October 2002 and the United
Nations' November resolution requiring Saddam Hussein to open the
country to inspectors. >
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