Not in the US Media: Proof of US/UK War Plans posted by Ben

Writes John Conyers:

"Dear Mr. President:

We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair's representative claimed the document contained 'nothing new.' If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration."

Full Text Here

What is Representative Conyers writing about? Only the proof positive that Bush and Blair not only planned to Iraq over ten months before they stopped denying that they intended to exercise military force. Only that they planned from the beginning to justify a war based on grounds that they and their advisers knew were false.

Under any other president, this would be an impeachable offense.

From the secret Downing Street memo, recently leaked:

Date: 23 July 2002

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.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August. [snip]

The Defense Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. 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. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

So why is this a big deal? Smintheus from Daily Kos explains:

The bombshell from the British papers this morning has had virtually no impact yet on D Kos, and I'm curious to know why it has not turned American politics upside down already. The leaked memo from the Prime Minister's office of a secret meeting (July 23, 2002) shows that after consulting with Bush and his administration, the British leaders met to strategize about an invasion of Iraq that Bush had already decided upon (months before the Congressional resolution)! The memo reveals the depths of cynicism of both the US and UK governments. For ex., the UK head of intelligence reports that for the Bush admin "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy". Much of the memo is devoted to developing a strategy to provoke a war against Iraq, and the problem that there was no apparent justification for it. The Foreign Secretary said "the case [for war] was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

But it gets worse. On May 6, 2003, Bush made this statement:

I've not made up our mind about military action. Hopefully, this can be done peacefully. Hopefully, that as a result of the pressure that we have placed -- and others have placed -- that Saddam will disarm and/or leave the country.

Had not made up his mind? Then how was he able, ten months before, to convince Blair to help him fabricate a series of excuses for war? How was he able to go to Congress and say with a straight face that he would exercise all possible peaceful options before resorting to military action? How was he able to say the same to the American people?

The answer is simple. He looked all of us in the eye and lied. Because of that lie, 1500+ American soldiers are dead, more than 10,000 are wounded, countless Iraqi civilians have lost their lives, we have spent over $300 billion dollars, and gas prices have only gone up.

Of course, for those of us who knew from the beginning that we were being lied to, this is hardly a surprise. But now is the time to put aside our tired cynicism and demand that Bush be held accountable for the outrageous effects of his lies.

And I ask again, why hasn't our media touched this explosive story?

More information at:

Democratic Underground
Britain's The Sunday Times (1, 2, 3)
The Raw Story
and Daily Kos