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The "'''Downing Street PENIS UP BUSHES ASS memo'''", sometimes described by critics of the [[2003 Iraq War]] as the "'''smoking gun memo'''", is a document obtained from an undisclosed source containing minutes taken during a meeting, on [[July 23]], [[2002]], among [[United Kingdom]] government, defense and intelligence figures, discussing the build-up to the war. The memo was printed in ''[[The Sunday Times]]'' on [[May 1]]. [[2005]], and is [http://wikisource.org/wiki/Downing_Street_Memo available in full on Wikisource]. Its authenticity has neither been confirmed nor denied by the British government, though [[Downing Street]] has stated the document contains "[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1592904-523,00.html nothing new]." There have been repeated requests for clarification, from the media and from a contingent of [[United States]] Congressmen, led by [[John Conyers]].
The "'''Downing Street memo'''", sometimes described by critics of the [[2003 Iraq War]] as the "'''smoking gun memo'''", is a document obtained from an undisclosed source containing minutes taken during a meeting, on [[July 23]], [[2002]], among [[United Kingdom]] government, defense and intelligence figures, discussing the build-up to the war. The memo was printed in ''[[The Sunday Times]]'' on [[May 1]]. [[2005]], and is [http://wikisource.org/wiki/Downing_Street_Memo available in full on Wikisource]. Its authenticity has neither been confirmed nor denied by the British government, though [[Downing Street]] has stated the document contains "[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1592904-523,00.html nothing new]." There have been repeated requests for clarification, from the media and from a contingent of [[United States]] Congressmen, led by [[John Conyers]].


46,000 UK troops were sent to join the US-led action, the largest non-US contingent of the Iraq invasion. The memo gets its name from [[London|London's]] Downing Street, where the official residence of [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]] [[Tony Blair]] is located (at [[10 Downing Street]]). It is a [[metonymy|metonym]] for the UK government in the same way that "Washington" is a metonym for the United States government.
46,000 UK troops were sent to join the US-led action, the largest non-US contingent of the Iraq invasion. The memo gets its name from [[London|London's]] Downing Street, where the official residence of [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]] [[Tony Blair]] is located (at [[10 Downing Street]]). It is a [[metonymy|metonym]] for the UK government in the same way that "Washington" is a metonym for the United States government.

Revision as of 01:47, 18 June 2005

The "Downing Street memo", sometimes described by critics of the 2003 Iraq War as the "smoking gun memo", is a document obtained from an undisclosed source containing minutes taken during a meeting, on July 23, 2002, among United Kingdom government, defense and intelligence figures, discussing the build-up to the war. The memo was printed in The Sunday Times on May 1. 2005, and is available in full on Wikisource. Its authenticity has neither been confirmed nor denied by the British government, though Downing Street has stated the document contains "nothing new." There have been repeated requests for clarification, from the media and from a contingent of United States Congressmen, led by John Conyers.

46,000 UK troops were sent to join the US-led action, the largest non-US contingent of the Iraq invasion. The memo gets its name from London's Downing Street, where the official residence of Prime Minister Tony Blair is located (at 10 Downing Street). It is a metonym for the UK government in the same way that "Washington" is a metonym for the United States government.

Outline

Template:Boxoutbegin

Copies of the minutes were sent to:

The minutes were meant to be kept confidential and are headed "This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents." It deals with the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War, and comes at a point at which it becomes clear to those attending, that U.S. President George W. Bush intended to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force.

The minutes run through the military options and then consider the political strategy in which an appeal for support from the international community and from domestic opinion would be most likely to be positively received. It suggests that an ultimatum for Saddam to allow back United Nations weapons inspectors be issued, and that this would help to make the use of force legal. Tony Blair is quoted as saying that the British public would support regime change in the right political context.

The most controversial paragraph is a report of a recent visit to Washington by head of the Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove (known in official terminology as 'C'):

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.

The British analysis of U.S. policy is also stated elsewhere in the minutes:

The Defence 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.
The Attorney-General said that 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. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.

The main sections covering the ultimatum are:

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors ... If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
...John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.
The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Reaction

Critics of Iraq war

Critics of the war claim that the memo proves that the Bush Administration was determined to go to war with Iraq prior to considerations of legality, and with full knowledge that, at best, "the case was slim." That they selected and exaggerated intelligence so as to confirm their policy and developed a plan to manipulate public opinion. Also, critics say that the contents (such as "Military action was now seen as inevitable.") and the date of the memo, July 23rd, 2002, contradicts the official White House position that Mr. Bush did not finally decide to carry out the invasion of March 2003 until after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the administration's case to the United Nations Security Council, in a speech on Feb. 5, 2003. They also point out that the memo is dated at a time when Bush stated that "we haven't made any decisions on Iraq, but all options are on the table."

Another paragraph has been interpreted to show that Geoff Hoon believed timing of the war's start was intended to influence American elections:

The Defence 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.

It has been said that some of those present at the meeting believed that Iraq might possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) "capacity". However, the minutes explicitly state that the capability was less than that of Libya, Iran, and North Korea, and that Saddam was not threatening his neighbors.

US Congress

On May 5, Congressman John Conyers sent a letter to President Bush signed by 89 of his colleagues demanding an explanation of the revelations in the memo. No specific White House response to the letter has been made publicly. In response to the Bush Administration's refusal to answer the congressional delegation's questions, Conyers et. al have given serious consideration to sending a fact-finding mission to the UK. [1]

Conyers initially requested 100,000 signatures from citizens (a petition) to request that the President Bush answer the questions in his letter. [2] The letter has been getting between 20,000 and 25,000 signatures a day, which was boosted by MoveOn.org joining the campaign on June 9. As of June 13, 2005, the letter had received over 540,000 signatures from citizens, and more congressmen have signed on, bringing the total to 94. [3] As of June 16, 2005, over 100 congressmen had signed the letter, including minority leader Nancy Pelosi.

Internet

Numerous web logs have picked up the story (see blogpulse for a histogram), and a website, www.downingstreetmemo.com, has been created dedicated to informing the public about the memo. AfterDowningStreet.org is a coalition of more than 90 organizations who support an inquiry by the US into the issues surrounding the Downing Street memo and, US pre-war intelligence, and the planning and execution of the Iraq war.

A blog was created specifically dedicated to discussing issues surrounding the memo, called downingstreetmemo.blogspot.com.

On May 30, 2005, in a "blogswarm" [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] fueled by the memo, hundreds of blogs joined together to form the Big Brass Alliance. The Big Brass Alliance is a collective of progressive bloggers who support After Downing Street, in pursuing their goals.

US Congressman John Conyers has also set up a blog, currently focused primarily on raising support for a re-opening of the Congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks, ConyersBlog.us. Conyers' blog is keeping tabs on the number of signatures on a petition for the campaign to re-open hearings (see petition links below). As of June 4, 2005, 133,000 signatures had been amassed, including over 20,000 new signatures in the preceding 24 hours.

Pundits

On May 18, conservative pundit and former Reagan Administration advisor Paul Craig Roberts wrote an article calling for Bush's impeachment for lying to Congress about the case for war.

On May 31, consumer advocate and former Presidential hopeful Ralph Nader recently wrote an article on ZNet calling for Bush and Cheney’s impeachment under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution [9]. Also on that day, he and Kevin Zeese authored an op-ed for the Boston Globe to support the call for impeachment against Bush, citing the memo as part of the evidence that the possibility of deliberate deception by the administration should be investigated. [10]

Citizens

A coalition of citizen groups running the gamut of social and political issues will ask Congress to file a Resolution of Inquiry, the first necessary legal step to determine whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses. [11] The formal Resolution of Inquiry request was written by Boston constitutional attorney John C. Bonifaz and is available here. The request states the constitutional grounds for impeachment:

[The U.S. President] has not given [the Senate] full information, but has concealed important intelligence which he ought to have communicated, and by that means induced them to enter into measures injurious to their country, and which they would not have consented to had the true state of things been disclosed to them.

Among the citizen groups are:

A website, afterdowningstreet.org, has been established for the newly emerging citizens' coalition.

Democrats.com has raised one thousand dollars, offered as a reward to anyone who can "get George Bush to answer this question:

In July 2002, did you and your administration "fix" the intelligence and facts about non-existent Iraqi WMD's and ties to terrorism -- which were disputed by U.S. intelligence officials -- to sell your decision to invade Iraq to Congress, the American People, and the world -- as quoted in the Downing Street Minutes?

In addition to the grand prize for eliciting a clear "Yes" or "No" answer, a number of lesser prizes are offered for lesser responses, down to $100 reward for video evidence of having posed the question clearly to President Bush within his hearing but getting no answer.[12]

News coverage

The Downing Street Minutes was a major story in the British press during the last few days of the 2005 general election campaign and was also covered in other countries. The story had limited coverage in the USA but has recently gained more attention in the American press.

The liberal media-watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has been among those that have criticized the U.S. media's coverage of the memo as disturbingly poor. [13] [14] On June 8, 2005, USA Today printed an article by their senior assignment editor for foreign news, Jim Cox, saying with respect to the memo, "We could not obtain the memo or a copy of it from a reliable source. ... There was no explicit confirmation of its authenticity from (Blair's office). And it was disclosed four days before the British elections, raising concerns about the timing."

On May 20th, 2005, Daniel Okrent, the Public Editor at the time for The New York Times, publicly assessed the coverage of the minutes in The New York Times in a forum on the NYT's website. He also stated that, due to continuing reader interest, the paper intends to give fuller coverage to the memo. [15] Although Okrent stepped down at the end of May (the routine end of his term), on NewsHour on June 8 he suggested some possible explanations for why the US media had been so slow to cover what he considered a very important story. He said it may have been assigned to 'foreign news' correspondents and wasn't seen as a Bush story, or it may be the US media is still working on researching it (although he then admitted he had no reason to believe that). NewsHour transcript, audio and video

The Christian Science Monitor was probably the first major US publication to report about the memo, and ironically the article talks about the lack of coverage. [16]

On Memorial Day, 2005, the Minneapolis Star Tribune was perhaps the first American daily city newspaper to reference the Downing Street Minute, as part of the evidence in an editorial stating explicitly,

"President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse....
"It turns out that former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill were right. Both have been pilloried for writing that by summer 2002 Bush had already decided to invade."

Veracity of the memo

One of the first articles on the memo to appear in the U.S. media quoted "a former senior U.S. official", who, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the memo's account "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" during the senior British intelligence officer's visit to Washington.[17] UK Prime Minister Tony Blair denied that anything in the memo demonstrated misconduct and said that it added little to what was already known about how British policy on Iraq developed.

  • White House spokesman Scott McClellan, when questioned about the document's accuracy, did not confirm or deny its accuracy.
  • US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, when questioned about the document's accuracy, did not confirm or deny its accuracy.
  • George W. Bush has not responded to questions from Congress regarding the memo's accuracy.
  • The British Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
  • A White House official said the administration wouldn't comment on leaked British documents.

US President George Bush

On June 7, 2005, at a joint George W. Bush-Tony Blair press briefing in the White House, Reuters correspondent Steve Holland asked, "On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?" President Bush did not address the issue of the intelligence and facts being "fixed" around a decision to go to war, but he did deny that he had, at the time of the memo, already decided to use military force against Saddam Hussein, saying "There's nothing farther from the truth." Bush also questioned the motives of whoever leaked the memo during the British election, saying "Well, I -- you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. ... I'm not sure who 'they dropped it out' is, but -- I'm not suggesting that you all dropped it out there."

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair

When the document was published, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair denied that anything in the memo demonstrated misconduct and said that it added little to what was already known about how British policy on Iraq developed.

Blair's response to Steve Holland at the joint news conference with Bush was "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all". He also reiterated that he and Bush had continued to try to find a way to avert war, "As it happened, we weren't able to do that because -- as I think was very clear -- there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked, or the way that he acted," again without explaining the apparent contradiction with the contents of the memo. He said the same thing in a June 7, 2005 interview with Gwen Ifill on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer .[18]

White House spokesman Scott McClellan

On May 16, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said that the memo's statement that intelligence was "being fixed" to support a decision to invade Iraq was "flat out wrong." However, McClellan admitted that he has not read the memo, but has only received reports of what it contains. [19]

On May 17, McClellan told reporters that the White House saw "no need" to respond to the letter from Congress. [20]

On May 23, when BTC News reporter Eric Brewer asked him about his May 16th statement, McClellan retracted it saying:

"Let me correct you...let me correct you on the characterization of the quote you attributed to me. I’m referring to some of the allegations that were made referring to a report.
In terms of the intelligence, the - if anyone wants to know how the intelligence was used by the administration, all they have to do is go back and look at all the public comments over the course of the lead-up to the war in Iraq, and that’s all very public information. Everybody who was there could see how we used that intelligence." [21]

This has jokingly been called "the McClellan challenge". [22]

US Secretary of State Rice and UK Foreign Secretary Straw

On May 18th, 2005, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw were questioned on the memo, although neither was able to give a detailed answer. Straw stated that he had not expected the question to come up. The full transcript is available here.

Additional documents

More British government documents relating to U.S./British planning on Iraq have reportedly been obtained by British journalists, with at least some of the documents having been made public. One document, a cabinet office paper titled "Conditions for Military Action" and dated July 21, 2002, was published (with the last page missing) by The Sunday Times on June 12, 2005.[23]

The Los Angeles Times published an article on June 15, 2005, describing several of the new documents; the article says that "Michael Smith, the defense writer for the Times of London who revealed the Downing Street minutes in a story May 1, provided a full text of the six new documents to the Los Angeles Times."[24]

See also

Wikisource links

External links

References

  • Guardian.co.uk - 'Iraq: full texts of speeches and key documents' (archived), The Guardian (retrieved May 31, 2005)
  • House.gov (pdf) - Letter to George W. Bush, regarding Downing Street Memo, signed by approximately 90 US Congress members, John Conyers, et al (May 5, 2005)
  • TimesOnline.co.uk - 'The secret Downing Street memo: Secret and Strictly Confidential - UK Eyes Only' (memo transcript) Sunday Times (May 1, 2005)

Petitions

Mainstream media coverage

Downing Street memo sites, etc.

  • AfterDowningStreet.org - After Downing Street (a coalition campaigning for the U.S. Congress to formally investigate whether President Bush committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war): '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'
  • Cryptome.org - 'Leaked Cabinet Office papers, September 2004: Evidence of false statements made by Tony Blair to Parliament and the media' (summary and links to 6 UK cabinet papers), Michael Lewis, (June, 2005)
  • DowningStreetMemo.com - 'The Downing Street Memo: Seeking The truth since May 13, 2005' (website supporting congressional request for investigation)
  • FreeRepublic.com - 'A Fix on Downing Street: About that supposed smoking-gun memo', Tod Lindberg, The Weekly Standard (June 20, 2005)
  • JohnConyers.com - 'The Downing Street Memo', John Conyers (May 27, 2005)
  • NationalReviewOnline.com - 'Causing a Commotion: "Downing Street Memo is old news', James S. Robbins, National Review (June 12, 2005)
  • TheFourReasons.org - 'The Four Reasons: why "We the People" must uphold the Constitution of The United States of America and hold those who violate it accountable' (impeachment resources, etc.)
  • WhiteHouseMemos.com - 'Featured Memos of the Week'

Blogs

  • BigBrassBlog.com - 'The Big Brass Alliance' (bloggers allied in support of AfterDowningStreet.org)
  • ConyersBlog.us - 'John Conyers, Jr.: 40 Years of Jobs, Justice and Peace'
  • DailyKos.com - 'A Matter of Minutes -- Downing Street Dossier'
  • LeftofCentrist.blogspot.com - Other documents that support the Downing Street Memo. (includes gif files of documents, June 12, 2005)

Online video

Online audio

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