The leaked memo

If news of the leaked British memo about "fixing" the intelligence in order to go to war hasn't reached your attention, it's not your fault. The press is not exactly doing a stellar job holding it before us. This ought to be headline, front page, blaring news for days on end but it's only getting a mention in the context of the recent British election. Ken Sanders, however, gets us up to speed with an article entitled, "Smoking gun memo appears, but where's the outrage?" Here are some excerpts:

This past Sunday, the Times of London released a leaked memorandum from Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide to Tony Blair. Dated July 23, 2002, the memo records the minutes from a crucial meeting between Blair and British military and intelligence chiefs nearly a year before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

At the meeting, Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6 (the British equivalent of the CIA), reported on his recent talks in Washington with George Tenet, who was then chief of the CIA. According to Dearlove, there was a "perceptible shift" in U.S. attitude toward Iraq and "[m]ilitary action was now seen as inevitable." "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD."

In support of Dearlove's conclusions, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also reported, "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action." Straw cautioned, however, that "the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

Now comes the kicker. According to Dearlove, in light of the "thin" case against Iraq, in Washington "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

You read it correctly. The Bush administration was tailoring the intelligence and facts to support its Iraq policy. Put differently, the U.S. cooked the books.
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The leaked memo has received significant coverage in Britain, particularly since it was released on the eve of Britain's parliamentary elections. It has received some passing coverage in the U.S., as well. The context of that coverage, however, has been largely limited to Blair's chances of winning reelection. In the U.S., the leaked memo has not been treated for what it is: compelling proof that Bush & Co. manufactured and manipulated intelligence to justify invading Iraq -- an invasion which has, so far, resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 Iraqi civilians and nearly 1,800 coalition military personnel.

For instance, in the days since the Times broke the story, the leaked memo has never been raised, not once, by the press in any White House press briefings. One would think that the U.S. news media would at least be interested in hearing the White House's spin on the issues raised in the leaked memo. Nevertheless, not a single question. Not one.

I don't know what to say. All I can think of is the furor over a stained dress once upon a time. How can this memo not merit equal attention???