2 new BBC articles on the UK Iraq memo:

Blair plays down new Iraq claims

The prime minister has again been facing questions over Iraq
Tony Blair has played down a leaked memo indicating he was looking at ways to justify war with Iraq in July 2002 - eight months before the conflict.
He claimed the Lib Dems and Tories were focusing on Iraq as they had "nothing serious to say" about other issues.

Michael Howard accused the prime minister of deceiving the Cabinet and the Commons over the war.

The Lib Dems said Iraq would dog Mr Blair if he won the election, and he would be a "lame duck" prime minister.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4503061.stm

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Hoon saw early Iraq legal advice

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon saw the attorney general's early advice on the Iraq war, he has revealed.
The advice, given to the prime minister on 7 March was not shown to a full Cabinet meeting on the war.

The early advice on the legality of war contained a reservations that were not included when Lord Goldsmith's advice was later published.

(snip)

Mr Blair has defended the failure to show the full 7 March advice to Cabinet, saying Lord Goldsmith was there in person to answer any legal questions and explain his view.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4506943.stm

This is all over the British press, including two more stories in the BBC today, and it should be as big in the news here too. The memo was written by a Blair foreign policy aide and is dated ten months before the war started. A couple of details leap out:

intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy

Saddam NOT threatening neighbors

WMD capability less than Libya, North Korea, or Iran (and this was said before they went through the inspector rigamarole).

the desire for regime change was NOT a legal base for military action

****

As you know from recent polls, more than 50% of Americans think the Iraq War was not worth the cost.

So what keeps you from covering a story like this in the detail and prominence it deserves?

Why can't you present something as clear as the bullet points I listed above?

Which of the stories on the front page of the Times can you honest to God say is more important than this? The runaway bride? Would we have the suicide bomber story or insurgency or wondering whether the new Iraqi government will succeed without this story behind all of them?

Thomas Jefferson envisioned the press as an informal but vital additional check and balance on government by keeping the public informed. If you sidestep stories like this and the one on the Bush plan to privatize Iraq's oil, that are critical to understanding what we are doing in Iraq, you are failing at that function.

NEW BBC STORIES:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4503061.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4506943.stm

THE GUARDIAN:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1474587,00.html

SUNDAY TIMES UK:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1592904,00.html

THE OBSERVER:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1474190,00.html


KEY EXCERPTS FROM MEMO:

I wonder why we aren't talking about the Iraq War Memo leaked, then released, in the UK over the weekend! The US news agencies have become a joke, doing anything to hide the information that exposes plans for a war in Iraq immediately following 9/11 --and truth be told, before that by the PNAC.

Many of us know what's happening in the rest of the world and your attempt to keep us uninformed makes you, not us, look stupid.

We need demand that they get the word out on this as well- the GOP owned media has no motivation to repeat this story- Top DEMs do- or at least should.

assistant is taking the message.

Assuming they relay it at all - I don't see it doing anything YET - unless they're all working with Conyers and getting ready for some big announcement (see BradBlog hint at big story coming up).

There you have it. Four to seven months before 9/11--and just 15 to 18 months before the drive to attack Iraq seriously revved up--the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor trumpeted that Iraq had a decimated military, no "significant capabilities" regarding WMD, and was so feeble that it couldn't even threaten the countries around it with conventional military power.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-no-wmd.htm

But that same nation is kicking US ass today
to the point where the generals are admitting that
they are now managing a "broken" force.