Media Black Out Downing Street Minutes

By David Swanson
May 31, 2005

Aggressive followers and participants in U.S. politics often have strong opinions about the Downing Street Minutes. Most other Americans have not heard of or are not clear about what the Downing Street Minutes are.

How is this possible? Here we have the official government minutes from a meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials, including a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then-director of Britain's CIA equivalent, MI-6, who had just returned from meetings with high U.S. Government officials in Washington. While the meeting recorded in these minutes occurred on July 23, 2002, months before President Bush submitted his resolution on Iraq to the United States Congress and months before Bush and Blair asked the United Nations to resume its inspections for alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the minutes make clear that Bush had decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by launching a war which, Dearlove reports, would be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD ." Dearlove continues: "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

In other words, here is an official document confirming the earlier reports of various former Bush Administration officials that Bush had decided to invade Iraq long before he made that public, and that he manipulated evidence to provide a bogus justification for the attack. Here is a smoking gun if there ever can be one. How can people not know about this?

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=537

or deliberate ignorance?

I find that when I bring this issue up to many people they respond with a "ho hum, didn't we already know this"?

The slow trickle of information seems to have innoculated many of the public and press to the proper level of shock and righteous outrage this kind of revelation should have generated. This is as bad as the Pentagon Papers, as bad as the Watergate Tapes, as bad as Iran-Contra, as bad as the Blue Dress... yet, there is no response.

Kudos to Karl Rove, he is indeed a master strategist - his maneavering has made this merely check and not check-mate, but the game is not yet over. Not by a long shot.

Vyan
http://vyan.blogspot.com

Not that you would care but the (Downing)memo is not a primary source, which is why it didn't get much press attention. Anybody can write an opinion memo about anything.

If you have proof Mr. Bush has lied about anything, please send it. Even the New York Times has dismissed these minutes as "second-hand".

Editor

there wouldn't be any stories.

journalists routinely cite other sources . . . OR THERE WOULD BE NO STORIES. oh, right, there ARE no stories, just admin propaganda.

sorry, lost my head.

ellen fl

based on the memo


"President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them."

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5427823.html

That must be the official RNC talking point, since the "not a primary source" baloney is exactly the stated reason why Bill O'Liely will not talk about the memo. That is a totally SHAM rationale for ignoring this devastating smoking gun memo!


First of all that rationale is WRONG-- the memo is the very essence of what a primary source is! It is a first-hand description/report of what was said by George Tenet, et al. at their meeting. It was written shortly after the event took place by a participant in the event. The memo clearly IS a primary source.

From the U. Berkeley web-site:

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/PrimarySources.html

WHAT ARE PRIMARY SOURCES?

Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. A primary source reflects the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer.

Undergraduates are sometimes allowed to use a broader definition of primary sources, which may include some of the types of materials listed below. If in doubt, ask your instructor.

Diaries, journals, speeches, interviews, letters, memos, manuscripts and other papers in which individuals describe events in which they were participants or observers.

Memoirs and autobiographies. These may be less reliable than diaries or letters since they are usually written long after events occurred and may be distorted by bias, dimming memory or the revised perspective that may come with hindsight. On the other hand, they are sometimes the only source for certain information.

Records of or information collected by government agencies. Many kinds of records (births, deaths, marriages; permits and licences issued; census data; etc.) document conditions in the society.

Records of organizations. The minutes, reports, correspondence, etc. of an organization or agency serve as an ongoing record of the activity and thinking of that organization or agency.

Published materials (books, magazine and journal articles, newspaper articles) written at the time about a particular event. While these are sometimes accounts by participants, in most cases they are written by journalists or other observers. The important thing is to distinguish between material written at the time of an event as a kind of report, and material written much later, as historical analysis.

<snip>

This was not a case of "anybody writing an opinion memo about anything." The memo is an absolutely damning first-hand account of the Bush Administration's secret policy toward Iraq. The memo completely contradicts what the Administration would go on to say publically about the need to make a pre-emptive strike against Iraq.

Second, the contents of the memo are corroborated all over the place by people like Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, Joseph Wilson, etc... It was NOT an opinion memo. It is a recounting of what was said at a meeting. The memo's authenticity has been verified and it is a report from a high ranking source to the highest levels of the British government.

Third, what the hell counts for probable cause these days? In the evidence world, the DS memo is a lot like Linda Tripp's tape recordings of Monica's confessions about sexual shenanigans with Bill Clinton. And we all know how DISINTERESTED the press was with the tapes, being "non-primary sources" and all. :sarcasm:

Bill O'Liely and that RUDE Mpls Star Tribune editor would probably not even accept, as probable cause for an inquiry, a confession by George Bush himself signed in his own blood in front of rolling TV cameras.

Sheesh. Give me a break.

going to be repeated as often as possible until repetition makes it the "truth."

as "President" Bush said the other day.

are being fixed around the policy of not reporting Bush crimes.

that's it exactly.

Can you direct it to Mr. Pinhead Editor's boss?

We gotta spoon feed them the news? Where the fuck are todays reporters....not repeaters, reporters?!

How about Bush's speeches? That might be a start.

The Tribune is burying its head in the sand.

A little over half-way down...

snip>

from The O'Reilly Factor on Fox, in which host Bill O'Reilly read and lied in response to a viewer's letter thus:

"Carol Bagagush (ph), Cleveland, Ohio: 'I would believe Margaret Carlson before I would believe our lying president, as proven recently in the Downing Street memo.'

"Not that you would care, Carol, but the memo is not a primary source, which is why it didn't get much press attention. Anybody can write an opinion memo about anything. If you have proof Mr. Bush has lied about anything, please send it along to me."


The New York Times has also dismissed these minutes as "second-hand," yet they are the undisputed official minutes of a government meeting. No one has hypothesized a scenario in which the information contained in the minutes was false. And Knight Ridder has reported that a top US official characterizes these minutes as accurately describing what went on in the Bush Administration. In fact, these minutes mesh so well with existing evidence, including the testimony of former Bush Administration officials, that others in the media have dismissed them as unworthy of coverage because what they reveal is "old news." It's hard to see, however, how the addition of official minutes to the accumulated evidence is not significant or how something can be old news before most Americans ever hear about it.

snip>

by a poster called "workingclassdude":
http://interactive.zogby.com/fuse/messageview.cfm?catid=24&threadid=4948

OK, this is clearly a media talking points memo from the White House. Could you please give us the editor's name? I would like to point out to him that we are aware that he doesn't produce his own thoughts.

from the editor that just printed such an awesome editorial on Memorial Day.

Welcome to DU, newcomer Sigmund.

from Lexis-Nexis (sorry, no link)


British Memo On U.S. Plans For Iraq War Fuels Critics
Douglas Jehl

May 20, 2005 Friday

Two former Bush administration officials, Richard A. Clarke, the former terrorism adviser, and Paul H. O'Neill, the former treasury secretary, have written books saying that Mr. Bush decided to invade Iraq by the summer of 2002. But the British memorandum, which records the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair's senior foreign policy advisers, does provide some contemporaneous validation for those accounts, though only through secondhand observations.

Among other things, the memorandum reported that Sir Richard Dearlove, the chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, reporting back from talks in Washington, had told other senior British officials that President Bush ''wanted to remove'' Mr. Hussein, ''through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D.,'' or weapons of mass destruction.

But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,'' Sir Richard was reported in the memorandum to have told his colleagues. One of them, Foreign Minister Jack Straw, was reported to have described the case for war as ''thin'' because ''Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his W.M.D. capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.''

The British government has not disputed the authenticity of the British memorandum, written by Matthew Rycroft, a top foreign policy aide to Mr. Blair. A spokesman for Mr. Blair has said that the memorandum does not add significantly to previous accounts of decision making before the war.

The Daily Show.
Seriously.
There is a sizeable portion of the population that gets news from The Daily Show now, comedy or not. the fact is, had they been around for the last couple weeks, they would have lambasted Bush over the memo, and the ripple effects would have made this story larger. If you don't believe me, think about all the other stories so far that TDS has covered that you haven't even seen in the MSM-they are the ones doing the reporting these days, and they've been gone two weeks!

Are they just as bad as the MSM? I don't get it.

Was there some sort of huge directive handed down by the government to all media outlets saying don't touch this story??

I'm becoming increasingly disturbed by this news blackout. Thank God for Conyers!!

We've had re-runs the last 2 weeks.

November and December for covering vote suppression/manipulation. I'm disappointed that TDS did not pick up and run with it. They had some great material they could have used.

This thread needs to be on the DU front page.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1814999
Thread title: “C-span this morning regarding Downing Street memo”
hertopos GD-Politics Fri May-27-05 07:38 PM
Says the host did not answer questions from two callers about the memo, then when asked so directly that he could not evade, he said he had never heard of the Downing St Memo, the caller would have to Google it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3753013
Thread title: Told KnightRidder rep that Cspan claimed UK memo was "internet rumor"
blm General Discussion Mon May-30-05 02:02 PM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3757225
Thread title: ”HEADS UP: Just got off the phone with UK memo reporter.”
blm General Discussion Tue May-31-05 03:25 PM
(Amazing – says reporter was unaware that the Downing St memo was being suppressed by news media in this country.)

And this thread, though not specifically on the Downing St Memo is also devastating in what it reveals:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3730041
Thread title: "Co-founder of CNN, Says "The Public Does Not Have a Right to Know"
Housewolf General Discussion Wed May-25-05 08:47 PM
(Advocates lying "in the government's interest," says he would have suppressed and lied about Abu Ghraib photos.)

Recommended for Greatest Page.

Is there some stonewalling going on or WHAT??? This is going to get good. They can't keep a lid on this for too much longer!

Read the whole thread - the media stampede to push this over-the-top McCain-deifying movie on prime tiime, Memorial day shows the other side of this coin. Many good comments and more info come out in the comments in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1818584
Thread title: "Framing for the presidency: TV Movie is pure pro-McCain propaganda"

Rules for the Orwellian press:

Suppress the things you want to keep secret. Pretend they never happened or are lies.

Push the propaganda and pretend it's fact. Glorify it and use emotion-inducing presentation to be sure of the desired effect.

even with the current availability of the history of the event.

The GOP learn their mistakes occasionally. Watergate hurt, and they weren't about to let that sort of thing happen again.

RTP

They wouldn't do diddly shit now.

now that says a whole lot about our koolaid press corp at the White House. Pitiful, chickenshit, cocksucka's