Houston Chronicle editorial on the DSM today.

[splat@14]

Its more than 4 paragraphs, hope the proctors let it through. I wrote and editorial to them this evening asking why it took a visit from Tony Blair to bring this to their pages. Honesty, they had nothing until Blair got here then the DSM broke in Houston. After >300 billion $ and >1600 American lives, a letter from our own congress (John Conyers) doesn't mean shit until Blair gets here. what a fucking statement........ Jacko was there every day!!!!!




MEMORANDUM OF INTENT
The Bush administration should explain why Americans should not be disturbed by a secret British memo on the runup to the Iraq War
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Weeks after it dominated front pages in Europe, the so-called Downing Street Memo finally has bored its way into the U.S. press. The 2002 document describes comments by Britain's intelligence chief, Richard Dearlove, concerning talks with U.S. officials eight months before the invasion of Iraq. Identifying Dearlove as "C," the leaked memo summarizes his report: "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."

Intelligence agents' observations can be inaccurate. The head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, erroneously thought the case for Iraqi WMD was a slam dunk. But the Downing Street memo accurately foresees the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the administration's attempts to link Saddam to al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction — links that were found after the invasion not to exist. The memo's observation that U.S. intelligence would be shaped to policy might be mistaken, but the administration did wind up using flawed analysis to justify its war policy to the American people.

An independent panel investigated the use of U.S. intelligence before the Iraq War. It concluded that President Bush and his administration did not manipulate the intelligence. The panel supported the administration's claim that it relied on faulty intelligence.

In a Tuesday press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush responded directly to the Downing Street Memo's content for the first time, saying, "there's nothing further than the truth." He added that his administration had worked hard to avoid sending troops to war. "Nobody," Bush said, "wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Like Blair, Bush reasonably points out that Saddam would never have changed his spots and, left to his own devices, would have endangered his neighbors and U.S. interests. But that argument, absent WMD and terrorist ties, was not what moved Congress to authorize military action.

In the interest of the nation and the administration, the source and content of the Downing Street Memo need to be fully explained.

[ananda]

1. umm.. reasonably???

«Like Blair, Bush reasonably points out that Saddam would never have changed his spots and, left to his own devices, would have endangered his neighbors and U.S. interests.»

Why is this a reasonable point? It's just propaganda. Sixteen years ago it was pointed out that terrorism against the USA would happen because we had a habit of going into ME countries and taking over their resources and establishing an oppressive, overly western influence that is insensitive to their culture and religion.

But why should I ever expect any Reeptile to look at his/her own responsibility and fault in these matters. They are certainly all true to pattern: utterly selfish, amoral, and incapable of conscience.

Sue

[Nikki Stone 1]

2. Should attach a copy of the memo itself

Did you already send the letter?

[splat@14]

3. Yep, sent the email.

Julie Mason is the Houston Chronicle white house corespondent and I sent all this crap to her. I did all this through "hotmail" and I keep my outbox/inbox/delete ,etc pretty clear. However, Julie Mason's email (below) pissed me off and drove the editorial comment to the paper. For what its worth, here's my reply to Mason but I no longer have the letter to the Op-ed page. Hey, I don't do this for a living!

Splat
<snip>

"Dear Julie,

I sent you two messages over this and you replied to the second where I forwarded some info to you from a website. Your reply was something to the effect that "form letters" were annoying. I didn't send a "form letter", but did forward an email from someone else on the subject. I was offended by the reply as I was left with the impression I was bothering you with emails on the subject. Your reply didn't have enough content to determine otherwise.

I guess I'm not going to try to interpret it. If sending you email on this subject is annoying, so is reading it as "news" 30 some days after the event. If I'm wrong, my apologies.

I will continue to send this stuff to anybody that will listen. I thought maybe that was you. Your paper told me twice over the phone they didn't know anything about the downing street memo or the John Conyers letter. They also asked if I would send it. I did..twice. Then some 3 weeks later comes your story and your reply. You can see I have had real good luck getting any kind of response. I guess I'll send it to the sports editor.

Sincerely,
Splat


<snip>

[Nikki Stone 1]

4. Let us know what happens

and if you get an answer