http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/11877957.htmMemo offers Bush's critics hard evidence on prewar intelligence
BY DICK POLMAN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - Shortly after his November triumph, President Bush declared that voters had endorsed his prosecution of the war in Iraq. In his words, "We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections."
But today, with U.S. casualties rising and military recruitment falling, it is clear that Bush's accountability moment has been extended. Even though he won't run for office again, voters continue to assess the signature decision of his presidency; in growing numbers, they are voicing dissatisfaction. And amid all this unease - for the first time, a majority of Americans say that the war launched in March 2003 has not made this nation safer -
a growing grass-roots movement is spotlighting a once-secret British government memorandum, written in the summer of 2002, that depicts Bush as having already decided to wage war, even though the case against Saddam Hussein was "thin."Americans are probably more conversant about Angelina Jolie than about the contents of the so-called Downing Street memo, which was leaked in London seven weeks ago to the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Times. But if the chaos in Iraq continues (80 U.S. troops and 700 Iraqis died last month), the awareness gap may narrow - because the memo states that as Washington was preparing for war, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
This is one of the few pieces of hard evidence that supports critics who contend that Bush hyped a non-existent threat - Saddam's purported weapons of mass destruction - as his justification for waging war.
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