home

More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sat Jun 11, 2005 at 07:06:30 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit

Both the Washington Post and the Times Online have updates on the July, 2002 briefing paper (of which the Downing Street Memo was a part.) The Times Online report has these new details:

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

In May, the Times Online outlined the briefing memo here. (our post on this is here.) The full text of the paper is here.

Crooks and Liars has lots of Dowing Street Memo coverage today.

< Brainwashing Camp for Gay Kids | Report: Gov't Statistics Show Terror Trials a Bust >

  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


    • Display: Sort:
    More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo | 27 comments (27 topical)
    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#1)
    by jarober on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:56 PM EST
    You could argue that the Iraq war was inadvisable, but illegal? No. based solely on the cease fire arrangement from 1991 (which Hussein had repeatedly violated), there was no illegality at all. I find it amazing how many straws you can grasp at. This wouldn't have anything to do with the recent drop in car bombings from over 2 dozen a day to 2, would it?

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#2)
    by Andreas on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:56 PM EST
    Britain: Former government legal advisor says Iraq war was illegal act of “aggression” By Richard Tyler, 10 July 2004 International legal experts regard Iraq war as illegal By Peter Schwarz, 26 March 2003 Canadian law professors declare US-led war illegal By Henry Michaels, 22 March 2003 The Bush administration repudiates international law By the Editorial Board, 18 March 2003 Australian legal experts declare an invasion of Iraq a war crime By James Conachy, 27 February 2003

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#3)
    by john horse on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    James, So what you are saying is that we went to war because Saddam violated the ceasefire agreement that ended Gulf War I. I don't seem to recall Bush mentioning the supposed violation of the ceasefire agreement as a reason for invading Iraq. In other words, WMD was never the basic reason for the war. Nor was it the horrid repression in Iraq. Or the danger Saddam posed to his neighbors. Or terrorism. You know all the reasons that Bush said or implied for invading Iraq. What the Downing Street memo and other recent documents have done is to show that Bush and Blair have been disingenuous in their stated reasons for invading Iraq. So now you apologists for this war and occupation are reduced to using reasons that weren't stated.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#4)
    by Andreas on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    Some supporters of the Bush-administration lie as much as George W. Bush himself. From the WSWS article "Canadian law professors declare US-led war illegal":
    The US and British governments have claimed that their invasion is justified by UN Security Council Resolution 1441 and two old Security Council resolutions authorizing force to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and setting out the terms of the cease-fire after the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The 1991 resolution required Iraq to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction. John Currie, a University of Ottawa law school professor and one of the drafters of the letter, described these arguments as fatally flawed. The 1991 resolution stated that the Security Council “decides to remain seized of the matter and to take such further steps as may be required for the implementation of the present resolution.” The Security Council—not the United States, Britain or other council members acting on their own—must decide on further use of force, Professor Currie said.
    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#5)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    John H - No. We went to war because of the reasons Bush stated in his 2003 SOTU speech. Read it here. BTW - The "but" is still in the memo. For some reason it doesn't want to come out. Perhaps you could get someone to find a months old copy that has "and" in it and ship it off to CBS.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#6)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    There is also the article (can't link cause I'm working-at least I'm sitting on my ass waiting to work)documenting how the RAF and US air forces stepped up their bombings in the no-fly zones starting in the fall of 2002. This also is a violoation of the cease fire which states that coalition flights over the no-fly zone were only allowed to fire if fired upon or they had a radar track on them. So JR's argument is moot, since violations occurred on both sides, and the RAF and USAF were deliberately trying to provoke SH and also were softening up the targets in anticipation of the coming invasion.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    Jim, The And or But your Clinton-esque spin obsession is about is not this memo. I was curious enough to ask a couple of colleagues who are professionally versed in "British English", who confirmed that from a British Grammatical P.O.W., your spin is specious, at best.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#8)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    Adept - Sorry old boy, Americans are reading it. And I don't think "but" means "and" in London or Peoria. Che - Does your non-existient link also say they weren't fired on, or didn't have a radar lock on them? In quiring minds want to know.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    Posted by James Robertson: "No. based solely on the cease fire arrangement from 1991 (which Hussein had repeatedly violated), there was no illegality at all." Well, that's odd, James. Since: 1) Blair's own law lord said the invasion would be illegal without a second UN resolution. 2) Kofi Annan specified that the invasion WAS illegal under the UN charter. 3) Conspiracy to lie to the American public and the Congress is ILLEGAL (an impeachment crime), as is conspiracy to lie to Parliament and the British people. 4) Bombing a sovereign country to soften it up for invasion, for a full year, as the DSM attests, is illegal. 5) Bombing civilian infrastructure is illegal. 6) Deploying mercenaries in an occupation is illegal. 6) Using D Uranium is WMD. Testing weapons on civilian populations is illegal. Use of napalm on cities during an occupation on the basis of collective guilt is illegal. 7) Genocide is illegal. Under the Genocide Convention, destruction of a national group is genocide: Article 2 In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: • (a) Killing members of the group; • (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; • (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 8) The Constitution of the US places the war powers with Congress, not the executive. Bush's claims of an urgent need for a hot invasion are UTTERLY UNSUBSTANTIATED, promised proofs and evidences never supplied. 9) "There is no more Iraq--there will be three territories." --H. F* Kissinger, early 2004. Conspiracy to reduce a country to territories of refugees in order to install airbases violates the UN charter, the Geneva Conventions, as well as other international laws. 10) A range of other laws have been blithely broken, in service of this insane USPNAC plot. TL, I think the briefing paper is from the same meeting as the DSM, but the DSM was prepared afterward (as minutes are). The DSM, if that is so, wasn't "part" of the briefing paper.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    Sorry old boy, Americans are reading it
    And that has what to do with it? It was written by a Brit, for Brits. In British English or American, your Clintonesque parsing remains specious.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#11)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    Jim, Wow, your emphasis belies your growing exasperation with the latest news. As I explained, I was at work and could not link. so Here it is. I realize that it is vague in that they are relying on the british military's report of actual tonnage dropped. Well, the snowball has apparently gained some momentum here. Not only do we have the Downing street minutes, we have the leaked briefing written by the Cabinet Office that was distributed at the Downing St. meeting, and we have a ramped up bombing campaign. All the while we were being told that SH was the aggressor and had to be stopped. Told about weapons that didn't exist. Mushroom clouds, aerial drones, portable labs, underground labs. Bush lied to everyone, and should be held accountable.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#12)
    by john horse on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    Along with the Downing Street memo, this new briefing paper destroys one of the major excuses offered by Bush apologists, the claim that Bush made the decision to invade in good faith based upon bad intelligence. What these documents show is that the intelligence was sufficient enough for both Bush and Blair to be aware of how weak the case for going to war was. Bush and Blair were not duped by bad intelligence. As a matter of fact, they were the ones who were duping the American and British public (what is referred to in the briefing paper as an "information campaign") While they were saying publically that the decision to go to war had not been made, the decision to go to war had already been made long ago in private. While they were saying publically that they were seeking a peaceful resolution, they were privately conspiring for war.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#14)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:57 PM EST
    PIL - Yep, we're not long on patience when we're attacked. BTW - Were you a mouse in the corner or a fly on the ceiling when Powell was doing this throwing? Hope you didn't get hurt. Che - What you don't understand is that the majority of Americans are not concerned if we decided to do a liitle special ops type work on Saddam. And yes, all of these claims are a little vague.... John H - And no, it destroys nothing..

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Jim, lying AGAIN: "we're not long on patience when we're attacked." Finally the jingoism! Go ahead and rush into ill-conceived, under-manned, under-armored, untrained, unplanned for, heavily protested, illegal, contradictory, corrupt, no-bid contracted, negligent, don't guard the nuclear materials, don't guard the plastic explosive dumps, don't guard the ammo, etc. WAR, which will get a lot of our best soldiers killed -- AND ELIMINATE THE WILLINGNESS of US citizens to sign up to fight, because the whole deal STINKS of a Bush clown act. What does he have to do, rub feces on his face on live television? And, anyhow, your point is a lie, because the calendar just got reversed on your revisionism, and there is still Paul O'Neill and others who say Bush went into power, by fraud, specifically in order to carry off this airbase installation scheme. Go ahead and make the 'the American people had to be lied to, because we need those airbases, and they don't understand' speech, Jim -- because your hurt feelings after Bush completely failed to protect 3,000 citizens and visitors JUST WON'T WASH.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Life is replete with unhappy endings. I have a feeling even if we found a videotape of Bush talking privately with PNAC and military leaders describing plans to focus American anger post-9/11 towards Iraq through an intense propaganda campaign that the Corporate Media would do everything they could to keep it from seeing the light of day.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#17)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Jim, Since when do you have a pulse on the opinions of so many. The truth is you are just confabulating. These were not special ops (put your army men away, it's grownup time at TL). This was an air campaign which killed innocents. But hey you don't care. Your tank is full.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#18)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    PIL - Gesh, according to you, anyone who disagrees with you is a lying racist... What a miserable life you must lead. I truly feel sorry for you. Let's look at a small bit of your almost uncontrolled raging response. Let's examine the "Bush didn't protect us...." First, there is the small matter of Gofrelick's memo, and the Chinese firewall it established between FBI and CIA. If nothing else it created an atmosphere of caution that kept the FBI on its heels, ignoring information that, if followed, would have prevented 9/11. Then we have what Richard Clarke, you do remember him, don't you? From his interview.
    "O'REILLY: All right. But that was quite different from what Clarke said in August of 2002 when he put forth that once President Bush took office in January, 2001, he stepped up the war against al Qaeda.
    (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
    CLARKE: In the first week in February, decided on principle, in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy, and to increase CIA resources, for example for covert action, five-fold, to go after al Qaeda. And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda."
    Note, PIL. In the FIRST WEEK OF FEBRUARY 01, BUSH WAS INCREASING RESOURCES! Now, was Bush aware? Let's see what Dr. Rice said:
    "The President was being briefed by George Tenet at least 40 some — 40 plus of his briefings dealt, in one way or another al Qaeda, or the al Qaeda threat."
    That is more than once a week, PIL. Now, care to talk about his vacation and PDB's? And then, did Bush notify the people? Here is what happened:
    ""At the special meeting on July 5 were the FBI, Secret Service, FAA, Customs, Coast Guard, and Immigration. We told them that we thought a spectacular al Qaeda terrorist attack was coming in the near future." That had been had been George Tenet's language. "We asked that they take special measures to increase security and surveillance. Thus, the White House did ensure that domestic law enforcement including the FAA knew that the CSG believed that a major al Qaeda attack was coming, and it could be in the U.S., and did ask that special measures be taken."
    Link PIL, I could go on but I think this demonstrates your total inability to grasp facts. You demonstrate only that you hate Bush. For your own mental health I urge you to seek treatment. Hate will corrode the brain. If you don't seek treatment, please, read "Moby Dick."

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#19)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Thank goodness we have the final explanation for the invasion of Iraq. Yhe Gorelick memo. Hi Jack!

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#20)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Che - The attacks were on Radar sites. No civilians there...unless, of course, they were mounted in the middle of a mosque, or town.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#21)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Che - No. The whole comment was to PIL, and each point was in response to his previos comment's last point, which spoke to the war, which speaks to the memo.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#22)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Is that a Pre-Impeachment Chill in the air? It's bloody June, must be that...

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#23)
    by Andreas on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    "PPJ aka Jim" successfully proved that George W. Bush expected a "spectacular" terrorist attack. Great, "PPJ aka Jim" convinced me. And then George W. Bush and others within his regime allowed it to happen. And than he used that to justify a war which was already planned years before.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#24)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Bushco had already told the Taliban that if they didn't cooperate on the pipeline projects, they would be history. You think bin Laden wasn't told about this? And Atta shortly thereafter?

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#25)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Jim the RAF and US bombings in the no-fly zone targeted more than radar sites and you know it. Stop lying.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#26)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:58 PM EST
    Guys, it's the Democrats' fault... When the first WTC attack happened, Clinton's seat in the White House wasn't even warm yet...and he got the blame, and right savaged him for sleeping on the job... And now says Clinton's to blame (surprise) for another attack during Bush's term, 9 months after he took office and a month after getting an "Osama's Gonna F#$k Your Sh&t Up" memo...yeah, it's Clinton's fault... And the Memo's takin' George down...book it...

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#27)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:00 PM EST
    Let's see. There is a possibility we are going to war and we might be preparing to do so? what a shock. of course, we will then wait 8 months before actually doing so. would the accepted converse be that we wait until declaring war to actually get ready.

    Re: More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo (none / 0) (#28)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:00:00 PM EST
    That's nice, Ed, but too bad Bush engaged BEFORE being ready. • NO planning for the occupation. • Only 2% of the vehicles armored during invasion. • One tank batallion instead of FIVE. The US shipped no tanks to the area, but rather cobbled together that one batallion from Kuwaiti tanks. The result was a near DISASTER for our troops, and many soldiers died as a direct result. • NO plans or orders to guard munitions, including nuclear materials and high-explosives -- with predictable results. • 40-60,000 US soldiers underarmored (no Kevlar). USAWC says that at least 1/4 of the KIA resulted from that failure. • Not one WMD found. A complete waste of man and materiel. • Bush illegally transfered Afghanistan-invasion funding to the Iraq effort. This followed up on Bush/Centcom's minute Afghan. invasion force, which gave local (Taliban-allies) Pushtun warlords the job of guarding ObL's exit from Tora Bora. He got away just fine. WHAT was the rush? The DSM gives voice again and again to how WEAK the evidence was. Pulling the inspectors out, in order to install airbases, at incredible cost to the US miltary, which should have been able to remove Hussein at a tenth of the cost. Indeed, Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz -- all LIED about the costs and scope of the invasion. That's what this deal is about. Nice try at the lie, though, Ed. Too bad they didn't just preemptively nuke the country to smithereens, eh? Better 'luck' on Iran. Jim, I'll have to read through your attempted-distraction play later when I have more time. Nice try, though. Why don't you answer ANY of the 1-10 in my first posting? Too hard to lie about those FACTS, it would seem.

    More on the Blair Iraq War Briefing Memo | 27 comments (27 topical)