THE DOWNING STREET MEMO
June 20, 2005

            A memo regarding a meeting of the highest ranking government officials in Great Britain, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, suggests that the United States was looking for an excuse to attack Iraq eight months before the start of the war. This can be inferred from the so-called Downing Street Memo recording what was discussed in London on July 23, 2002, and contradicts the George W. Bush administration’s public statements regarding the real reasons the war was declared against Saddam Hussein’s regime.

            The secret, confidential memo was published by the newspaper The Times of London last May first, but until now it had not gotten much attention from the American press.  According to the document, the then head of the British intelligence agency (M16), Richard Dearlove, who was returning from a trip to Washington, advised Blair and his cabinet of the following: “Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam. Through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD (weapons of mass destruction). But the intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy.”(1)

            Once again, this was being discussed EIGHT months prior to the start of the war, when supposedly the United States had not yet made the decision to invade Iraq. According to the memo, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, said that “It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action (against Iraq), 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 that that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.”(2)

            This document, whose authenticity has not been questioned by either the British or the American government, seems to support former Security Advisor Richard Clark’s version, who states in his book “Against All Enemies” that President Bush himself pressured him to find out whether Iraq had anything to do with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. This coincides with journalist Bob Woodward’s description in his book, “Plan of Attack,” in which he shows how various members of the Bush administration set their sights on Iraq, even though Saddam Hussein may not have had anything to do with destroying the twin towers in New York or the attack on the Pentagon.

            The surprising thing about the Downing Street Memo (named for the street on which the British Prime Minister resides) is the little attention it has received in some of the principal news media in the United States, in spite the fact that it is an official document that contradicts the American version regarding the start of the war. The Media Matters organization has taken on the task of measuring the minimal coverage that this memo has received. Why? Perhaps because nothing can be done at this point with regard to an armed conflict that has cost the lives of at least 1,700 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.  But it is necessary to know how and why the war really started.

            At a joint press conference in Washington early this month, both Bush and Blair denied that they agreed to attack Iraq months before the start of the war.  But the Los Angeles Times newspaper suggests, based on a leaked secret document, that Blair may have given Bush his tacit approval to attack Iraq when they met at the president’s ranch in Texas in April 2002, ELEVEN months prior to the first bombing raid. Moreover, neither Dearlove nor Straw have publicly retracted what is stated in the Downing Street Memo.

            Did the Bush administration have a secret plan to attack Iraq, regardless of whether or not it had weapons of mass destruction?  Were Bush and his team bent on toppling Sadaam Hussein’s regime at any cost?  Did they use the 2001 terrorist attacks and the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction to justify the war?  Was the entire process of trying to legitimize the war through the United Nations nothing more than a farce?

            These are all questions that arise from a reading of the Downing Street Memo, (which millions have read on the internet sites www.afterdowningstreet.org and www.downingstreetmemo.com.) It is a piece of news that has been burried and forgotten—it was first published six weeks ago in Europe—but which refuses to die because of its enormous implications.

             In a letter that was also signed by half a million people, ninety-four congressmen have demanded that the White House answer the questions that have come up as a result of this memo.  At the same time, bipartisan pressure is increasing to set October first as the date on which the US forces will begin their withdrawal from Iraq. In other words, it is a matter of Bush telling how the war started and how he plans to get out of it. No more, no less.