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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8337422/Downing Street Memo explained
Controversial documents leave many questions unanswered
Updated: 3:05 p.m. ET June 24, 2005
David Shuster
MSNBC Correspondent
WASHINGTON D.C. -- It's a memo based on a briefing given to British Prime Minister Tony Blair eight months before the invasion of Iraq. U.S. forces had already taken control in Afghanistan. CIA Director George Tenet and his British counterpart Richard Dearlove had just met in Washington. President bush was busy ratcheting up his rhetoric about Saddam Hussein.
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The so-called Downing Street memo reads: "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
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But the memo doesn't offer any specifics or cite an admission from any U.S. decision maker.
At the White House recently, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair denied fixing any facts on Iraq. The leaders said the memo's allegation about a rush to war contradicts the U.S. attempt to involve the United Nations first.
Does this mean Blair's intelligence chief had it all wrong at the meeting? Or did the Bush administration use the U.N. as a cover to go to war with Iraq?
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