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Sunday, June 12, 2005

I wonder if WaPo thinks this is a scoop
Posted by Jill | 6:59 AM

It's a frickin' miracle: The Downing Street memo is mentioned on page 1 of the sleepy Washington Post:

A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation of that country.

The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq.

In its introduction, the memo "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" notes that U.S. "military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that "little thought" has been given to, among other things, "the aftermath and how to shape it."

The July 21 memo was produced by Blair's staff in preparation for a meeting with his national security team two days later that has become controversial on both sides of the Atlantic since last month's disclosure of official notes summarizing the session.

[snip]

Now, disclosure of the memo written in advance of that meeting -- and other British documents recently made public -- show that Blair's aides were not just concerned about Washington's justifications for invasion but also believed the Bush team lacked understanding of what could happen in the aftermath.


My guess is that this article was allowed to appear on Page 1 because it makes Tony Blair look even worse than Bush. It means that Tony Blair knew exactly what kind off a clusterfuck this war was going to be -- and went along with it anyway.

One has to wonder what kind of photos of Tony Blair Karl Rove has that Blair felt he had to go along with this anyway.

And it gets better. The Times of London is reporting even more about this advance briefing:

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.


It would be easy to start believing that the scam has finally been revealed, and that this most corrupt of presidencies in history is on its way to unraveling. But I think that would be premature. Bush is pretty much regarded as an impulsive hotdog all over the world, but people thought Blair at least was smart enough to know better. Right now I think Tony Blair is going to be the sacrificial lamb for the Bush war policy, while Bush himself remains unscathed.

The British press isn't going to let up on this. No one is exactly madly in love with Tony Blair. His recent election was hardly a resounding endorsement. And believe me, if the Bushistas smell blood in the water, they'll cooperate full well in the whacking of Tony Blair. The Bush family are users, and if you've outlived your usefulness, they'll toss you in the trash like a used diaper.
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