Downing Street Memo

Well, I finally got around to reading the Downing Street Memo, which is basically the notes taken by the British when Bush (through intermediaries) made the case to them to go to war in July of 2002. They were leaked to the press, and eventually published in full by Downing Street. Here are some quotes, interspersed with my own thoughts:

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

This belies the claims the Bush administration made when they could produce no WMD's that they were just going on the best available intelligence.

There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

From this, it's clear that someone made the point to him that he should at least consider an exit strategy. But now we're in a quagmire that we can't extricate ourselves from, with insurgents taking pot shots at our boys in uniform.

No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

This one shocked me. I'm pretty skeptical of Bush's motivations, but I didn't really think that he timed the war specifically for political gain for conservatives. But this is clear evidence that the timing of the war was largely a ploy to shore up conservative power.

It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

If, as Bush had claimed, it was imperative to act to stop the threat of WMD, then why did we attack Iraq? Is it because the American populace was predisposed, and it would play well for election time? I didn't think that before reading this memo, but now it's clear that this war had a strong domestic political motivation.

Of course, my question is, why isn't this being reported here in the US? It's apparently widely reported in Britain. You can find some scant mention of it on CNN and like places, but not much. Salon did an article on it, and the Washington Post has analysis too. But the television news sites seem silent on the issue - not even the usual spin doctoring.