Philippe Naughton, Times Online
Downing Street minutes that lasted for months
Sat Jun 11, 2005 19:52
64.140.159.209
Downing Street minutes that lasted for months
By Philippe Naughton, Times Online
It is not that often, we have to admit, that an item posted one night on Times Online is still getting hundreds of thousands of hits six weeks later, especially when what bloggers like to call 'the mainstream media' have largely ignored its existence.
But that is what happened to the now infamous secret Downing Street memo, posted on the site on May 1 alongside a story by Michael Smith of The Sunday Times. And if the document has taken on a life of its own it is largely because of the bloggers and their web-savvy allies on the US Left.
The memo is not actually a memo, but the minutes of a top-secret meeting in Downing Street on July 23, 2002, when Tony Blair gathered senior ministers and advisers for a briefing on the Iraq situation. Among those they heard from was Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the UK foreign intelligency agency MI6, who was identified only as 'C'.
'C' reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude, military action was now seen as inevitable, the minutes said. "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."
That was not the only revelation made by the document, but it was the key one for US readers, all they needed to decide that the Bush administration had planned eight months before the Iraq war that the invasion was definitely going to happen and that it was just sorting out the legal and technical niceties.
The major US newspapers mostly decided not to touch the story, variously explaining afterwards that they could either not stand up the document's authenticity or that everyone knew that that was what had happened anyway.
Not so liberal bloggers and an alliance of activists, radio hosts, Democratic members of Congress and newspaper readers who insisted, and carried on insisting, that the document be aired and addressed.
The web magazine Salon.com has run a long piece looking into which media organisations reported the memo and which ignored it. Until this week, the number of US newspaper articles reporting on the memo "could be counted on two hands", it said, and some of those were discussing the lack of media interest in the memo rather than the substance and implications of the memo.
Salon also reported that of more than 900 questions asked of Scott McLellan, the White House spokesman, in 19 briefings since the memo was first published, only two refered to the document (about which Mr McLellan claimed to be unaware).
The Sunday Times piece had not gone unnoticed in Washington. As early as May 5, before US media had touched the document and as Britons voted in an election that had obviously overshadowed the story in the UK, a group of 89 Democrat members of Congress headed by Representative John Conyers wrote to President Bush asking him to confirm or refute the minutes.
Various sites picked up the story and posted a link to the memo, including the filmmaker Michael Moore's influential blog. Technorati.com, which monitors a staggering 11 million weblogs, lists 3,300 sites that have referenced or discussed the memo - although most just seem to be rants about MSM (mainstream media) "incompetence".
There are even sites dedicated to nothing else but the memo, including DowningStreetMemo.com and AfterDowningStreet.org.
If you visit the DowningStreetMemo site you can click on a link to Mr Conyers's own site and add your signature to the letter to Mr Bush. So far, 145,000 people have done so; the organisers are hoping to gather 250,000 signatures.
You can also sign a petition on the Democracy for America site pledging to tell your friends about the Downing Street memo. This site is run by Jim Dean, a brother of the former Democratic presidential aspirant Howard Dean.
Almost six weeks after its publication, "memogate" continues to pick up steam. Senators Kennedy and Kerry have waded in, as has the consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who suggested that the President should face impeachment for lying to the American people over the need for war in Iraq.
Just remember, you read it first in the "Times of London".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1647567,00.html
===============
About the Downing Street Memo...
US Media Shamed by Brit Journalist
By DAVE LINDORFF
At this stage, it seems almost pointless to say it, but once again, the corporate media in America have been exposed as a cowardly mass of toadies who cannot bring themselves to publish or air anything remotely critical of the administration unless compelled to do so by cattle prods...or a reporter from a foreign news organization doing what reporters are supposed to do routinely. Continue
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9109.htm
Bush & Blair/Iraq Denials Raise Questions
http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/randirhodes/messageboards/index.php?act=ST&f=131&t=54153
Published June 9, 2005
On the subject of when, why and how the United States decided to attack Iraq, American citizens' recent seeming lack of interest has been a puzzle to many in the rest of the world. As the Bush administration's stated reasons for war shifted, ebbed and flowed, many simply went with the flow, finding each succeeding reason -- well, reason enough. Some became more and more skeptical, even cynical; others just didn't know what to believe. But whatever their reasons, Americans have shown much less interest than the British in a bombshell of a memo leaked last month in London.
Tuesday provided a moment when top leaders could have helped them sort it all out, yet little was clarified -- which can only lead to increased skepticism on the part of anyone paying close attention.
When the so-called Downing Street memo came up in a question directed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush at their joint news conference in Washington, the two leaders answered in such a way as to spur headlines like the one on Page 1 of Wednesday's Star Tribune: "A joint denial of Iraq memo." People who've paid casual attention to news of the secret document might variously assume now that Bush and Blair had dismissed the memo as a forgery or denied that its contents were true -- or both. A careful reading of the two men's words, however, shows that they denied much less than one might think; it also brings up pertinent questions that the president should be pressed to answer.
The memo is actually the minutes of a meeting of Blair and his highest officials on July 23, 2002, eight months before the invasion of Iraq. Leaked to the Sunday Times of London, it was printed on May 1. The memo contained this description of what was said by Sir Richard Dearlove, or "C," the head of Britain's foreign intelligence service: "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 [Hussein], through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Bush and Blair were asked of this part, "Is this an accurate reflection of what happened?" Blair, saying he could respond very easily said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all," and went on to say that military action had to be taken because Saddam didn't comply with international law. Bush said, among other comments, "There's nothing farther from the truth," implying that C was wrong, without going into detail.
Neither addressed the intelligence and whether it was being concocted to provide a justification for removing Saddam. Blair, who was more specific than Bush, didn't address other key parts of the minutes, such as when Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is summarized as saying, "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."
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith explained in the meeting that, as the memo relates, "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation."
How could one of those occur? Blair did not address his own response to Straw and Goldsmith as described in the memo: "The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors."
This is stunning. As Mark Danner wrote in Sunday's New York Review of Books, "Thus the idea of UN inspectors was introduced not as a means to avoid war, as President Bush repeatedly assured Americans, but as a means to make war possible."
These and other points make the Downing Street memo one more in a string of accounts that undercut the administration's version of events. Tuesday's brief, narrow denials may have generated the desired headlines, but they did little to set the record straight.
© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
http://www.startribune.com/dynamic/story.p...a&story=5448236
By Philippe Naughton, Times Online
It is not that often, we have to admit, that an item posted one night on Times Online is still getting hundreds of thousands of hits six weeks later, especially when what bloggers like to call 'the mainstream media' have largely ignored its existence.
But that is what happened to the now infamous secret Downing Street memo, posted on the site on May 1 alongside a story by Michael Smith of The Sunday Times. And if the document has taken on a life of its own it is largely because of the bloggers and their web-savvy allies on the US Left.
The memo is not actually a memo, but the minutes of a top-secret meeting in Downing Street on July 23, 2002, when Tony Blair gathered senior ministers and advisers for a briefing on the Iraq situation. Among those they heard from was Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the UK foreign intelligency agency MI6, who was identified only as 'C'.
'C' reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude, military action was now seen as inevitable, the minutes said. "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."
That was not the only revelation made by the document, but it was the key one for US readers, all they needed to decide that the Bush administration had planned eight months before the Iraq war that the invasion was definitely going to happen and that it was just sorting out the legal and technical niceties.
The major US newspapers mostly decided not to touch the story, variously explaining afterwards that they could either not stand up the document's authenticity or that everyone knew that that was what had happened anyway.
Not so liberal bloggers and an alliance of activists, radio hosts, Democratic members of Congress and newspaper readers who insisted, and carried on insisting, that the document be aired and addressed.
The web magazine Salon.com has run a long piece looking into which media organisations reported the memo and which ignored it. Until this week, the number of US newspaper articles reporting on the memo "could be counted on two hands", it said, and some of those were discussing the lack of media interest in the memo rather than the substance and implications of the memo.
Salon also reported that of more than 900 questions asked of Scott McLellan, the White House spokesman, in 19 briefings since the memo was first published, only two refered to the document (about which Mr McLellan claimed to be unaware).
The Sunday Times piece had not gone unnoticed in Washington. As early as May 5, before US media had touched the document and as Britons voted in an election that had obviously overshadowed the story in the UK, a group of 89 Democrat members of Congress headed by Representative John Conyers wrote to President Bush asking him to confirm or refute the minutes.
Various sites picked up the story and posted a link to the memo, including the filmmaker Michael Moore's influential blog. Technorati.com, which monitors a staggering 11 million weblogs, lists 3,300 sites that have referenced or discussed the memo - although most just seem to be rants about MSM (mainstream media) "incompetence".
There are even sites dedicated to nothing else but the memo, including DowningStreetMemo.com and AfterDowningStreet.org.
If you visit the DowningStreetMemo site you can click on a link to Mr Conyers's own site and add your signature to the letter to Mr Bush. So far, 145,000 people have done so; the organisers are hoping to gather 250,000 signatures.
You can also sign a petition on the Democracy for America site pledging to tell your friends about the Downing Street memo. This site is run by Jim Dean, a brother of the former Democratic presidential aspirant Howard Dean.
Almost six weeks after its publication, "memogate" continues to pick up steam. Senators Kennedy and Kerry have waded in, as has the consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who suggested that the President should face impeachment for lying to the American people over the need for war in Iraq.
Just remember, you read it first in the "Times of London".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1647567,00.html
===============
About the Downing Street Memo...
US Media Shamed by Brit Journalist
By DAVE LINDORFF
At this stage, it seems almost pointless to say it, but once again, the corporate media in America have been exposed as a cowardly mass of toadies who cannot bring themselves to publish or air anything remotely critical of the administration unless compelled to do so by cattle prods...or a reporter from a foreign news organization doing what reporters are supposed to do routinely. Continue
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9109.htm
Bush & Blair/Iraq Denials Raise Questions
http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/randirhodes/messageboards/index.php?act=ST&f=131&t=54153
Published June 9, 2005
On the subject of when, why and how the United States decided to attack Iraq, American citizens' recent seeming lack of interest has been a puzzle to many in the rest of the world. As the Bush administration's stated reasons for war shifted, ebbed and flowed, many simply went with the flow, finding each succeeding reason -- well, reason enough. Some became more and more skeptical, even cynical; others just didn't know what to believe. But whatever their reasons, Americans have shown much less interest than the British in a bombshell of a memo leaked last month in London.
Tuesday provided a moment when top leaders could have helped them sort it all out, yet little was clarified -- which can only lead to increased skepticism on the part of anyone paying close attention.
When the so-called Downing Street memo came up in a question directed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush at their joint news conference in Washington, the two leaders answered in such a way as to spur headlines like the one on Page 1 of Wednesday's Star Tribune: "A joint denial of Iraq memo." People who've paid casual attention to news of the secret document might variously assume now that Bush and Blair had dismissed the memo as a forgery or denied that its contents were true -- or both. A careful reading of the two men's words, however, shows that they denied much less than one might think; it also brings up pertinent questions that the president should be pressed to answer.
The memo is actually the minutes of a meeting of Blair and his highest officials on July 23, 2002, eight months before the invasion of Iraq. Leaked to the Sunday Times of London, it was printed on May 1. The memo contained this description of what was said by Sir Richard Dearlove, or "C," the head of Britain's foreign intelligence service: "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 [Hussein], through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Bush and Blair were asked of this part, "Is this an accurate reflection of what happened?" Blair, saying he could respond very easily said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all," and went on to say that military action had to be taken because Saddam didn't comply with international law. Bush said, among other comments, "There's nothing farther from the truth," implying that C was wrong, without going into detail.
Neither addressed the intelligence and whether it was being concocted to provide a justification for removing Saddam. Blair, who was more specific than Bush, didn't address other key parts of the minutes, such as when Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is summarized as saying, "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."
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith explained in the meeting that, as the memo relates, "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation."
How could one of those occur? Blair did not address his own response to Straw and Goldsmith as described in the memo: "The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors."
This is stunning. As Mark Danner wrote in Sunday's New York Review of Books, "Thus the idea of UN inspectors was introduced not as a means to avoid war, as President Bush repeatedly assured Americans, but as a means to make war possible."
These and other points make the Downing Street memo one more in a string of accounts that undercut the administration's version of events. Tuesday's brief, narrow denials may have generated the desired headlines, but they did little to set the record straight.
© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
http://www.startribune.com/dynamic/story.p...a&story=5448236
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