Olbermann had outstanding coverage of the DSM tonight..

[Halliburton]

Covered the memos that were leaked to the Associated Press over the weekend and they also had an excellent guest from Newsweek who brought up an excellent point that the memos contradict what the Administration was saying in Summer 2002 that they weren't preparing for war.

[tk2kewl]

1. agreed.

i hope everyone that watched hardball stayed tuned in

[MSgt213]

2. After listening to that report. I seriously think the British are trying

to get back at Bush for lying through out the lead up to this war and for fucking up the occupation.

[AX10]

3. I hope they do so.

[merbex]

4. And maybe trying to prevent the next country on the Bush Hit Parade

from suffering the same fate

[babylonsister]

6. Don't forget Blair; he's complicit as well. nt

[Twist_U_Up]

5. Out of all the Coverage

they had on MSNBC. Of that of what I saw, they lacked to mention probably the most important thing about the Iraqi war over

1700 of our troops and over 15,000 wounded and possibly 100,000 Iraqis

[creeksneakers2]

7. Some points on Downing Street memo I haven't heard mentioned

1. The sentence before the sentence with FIXED in it is more telling.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam by military action, JUSTIFIED by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD."

Bush didn't want to remove Saddam because of terrorism and WMD, he wanted to JUSTIFY the removal.

The next sentence uses the word FIXED.

I don't think this is about lying about WMD. Lying about WMD was an issue that came afterwards. Bush's stated reason for the war was:

Saddam could give WMD to terrorists who would attack America.


That threat shows the conjunction between WMD and terrorism. It uses terrorism even though the Brits discounted it. Bush wasn't even telling the Brits about fears of terrorism. He was telling them about the best way to sell the war.

Bush's far fetched threat was obviously concocted. People at the time asked, "If Saddam wanted to do this, and could do this, why hasn't he done it?" Others asked why he would need terrorists at all if he wanted to attack America. We've since learned that Bush actually had almost no evidence of any link between Saddam and terrorism. Terrorism was thrown into the concocted threat because it was a selling point.

I think that was what the fixing was about. Viewed as a plan for this far fetched threat, the memos fit better with the known outcome.

2. On the subject of Bush issuing ultimatums, I haven't heard anybody mention that Bush didn't just demand inspectors be let in, he demanded that Saddam turn over enormous stockpiles of weapons. There was very little to back up that Saddam had that amount of weapons. The NIE said he could have up to that many. UNMOVIC said that many were unnacounted for. The amount Bush demanded was the most he could possibly demand. It is more likely that Bush demanded more than he thought Saddam could deliver precisely because Saddam could not possibly comply.

The response so far from the Bush cabal about the memos is, "Yes, but after that we went to the UN and tried the peaceful route." I think if it could be proven that Bush knew Saddam has less WMD than the ultimatum demanded, that would prove that Bush made the ultimatum in bad faith to satisfy the Brits.

[AgadorSparticus]

8. i'll catch him later tonight. can't wait.... nt

[Starbucks Anarchist]

9. I think he's on Leno tonight.