- WASHINGTON - A highly classified
British memo, leaked in the midst of Britain's just-concluded election
campaign, indicates that President Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was determined to ensure that US intelligence
data supported his policy.
-
- The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting
of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports
on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service.
The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring
to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war.
-
- "There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military
action was now seen as inevitable," the MI-6 chief said at the meeting,
according to the memo. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military
action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," weapons
of mass destruction.
-
- The memo said "the intelligence and facts were being
fixed around the policy." NO weapons of mass destruction have been
found in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. The White House has
repeatedly denied accusations made by several top foreign officials that
it manipulated intelligence estimates to justify an invasion of Iraq.
-
- It has instead pointed to the conclusions of two studies,
one by the Senate Intelligence Committee and one by a presidentially appointed
panel, that cite serious failures by the CIA and other agencies in judging
Saddam's weapons programs. The principal U.S. intelligence analysis, called
a National Intelligence Estimate, wasn't completed until October 2002,
well after the United States and United Kingdom had apparently decided
military force should be used to overthrow Saddam's regime.
-
- The newly disclosed memo, which was first reported by
the Sunday Times of London, hasn't been disavowed by the British government.
A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington referred queries to another
official, who didn't return calls for comment on Thursday.
-
- A former senior U.S. official called it "an absolutely
accurate description of what transpired" during the senior British
intelligence officer's visit to Washington. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
A White House official said the administration wouldn't comment on leaked
British documents.
-
- In July 2002, and well afterward, top Bush administration
foreign policy advisers were insisting that "there are no plans to
attack Iraq on the president's desk."
-
- But the memo quotes British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw,
a close colleague of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, as saying that
"Bush had made up his mind to take military action."
-
- Straw is quoted as having his doubts about the Iraqi
threat.
-
- "But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening
his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North
Korea or Iran," the memo reported he said.
-
- Straw reportedly proposed that Saddam be given an ultimatum
to readmit United Nations weapons inspectors, which could help justify
the eventual use of force. Powell in August 2002 persuaded Bush to make
the case against Saddam at the United Nations and to push for renewed weapons
inspections.
-
- But there were deep divisions within the White House
over that course of action. The British document says that the National
Security Council, then led by Condoleezza Rice, "had no patience with
the U.N. route."
-
- Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the leading Democrat on the
House Judiciary Committee, is circulating a letter among fellow Democrats
asking Bush for an explanation of the document's charges, an aide said.
-
- © 2005 KR Washington Bureau and wire service sources.
All Rights Reserved.
-
- http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashi
|
