Memo manipulation (DowningStreet)(Update: see Kerry's Letter to Senate committee)

You've got to ask yourself: How many times are the Bush-bashers going to throw the same infamous Downing Street memo at the wall of public opinion hoping it'll stick?

If politics is the art of transferring blame, I'm betting we haven't seen it for the last time.

For those of you who have (wisely) taken the summer off from politics in favor of following the Nats or perfecting your tan, let me clue you in on "Memo-gate."

Eight months before the Iraq war began in March 2003, an aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote a memo stating that the Bushies were going to war with Saddam Hussein come hell or high water — and no matter what the UN said.

After reading the memo, which is only one person's analysis of the situation in Washington, most reasonable people agree that such an interpretation — in all fairness — is debatable. Blair and Bush deny any manipulation of the facts or intelligence in support of the case for war.

Where the memo becomes a sticky political wicket is that it has provided a possible "smoking gun" for those who opposed the war before it started as well as for those who supported the war, but who now have cold feet as the war moves into its third year.

The current state of play is similar to the old adage: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." But in this case, it's: "When the going gets tough, the politicians run for cover."

Memo-gate has nothing to do with the war as it stands today, but it has everything to do with politics and next November's midterm congressional elections when, by the way, all of the members of the House and one-third of the Senate will stand for re-election.

Even those who have had their noses buried in the sports pages know that the war has been tough going of late, especially since the spring. Lots of Americans are wondering if the expense of American blood and treasure has been worth it.

Both the president and Congress' approval ratings have dropped significantly in the last few months, some of it undoubtedly due to the Iraqi situation. President Bush's approval numbers have dropped to some of the lowest levels in his presidency (42 percent in a recent poll).

In the same poll, Congress came out worse than the president at 33 percent approval — an eight-year low.

Could it be that some members of Congress are resurrecting the Downing Street Memo in hopes of covering their political derrieres?

Could their re-election strategy be to throw themselves on the mercies of their constituents by proving that the president duped them with fixed intelligence and misdirection about Iraq policy?

Of course, only each memo-waving member can answer that question for him/herself …

But political motivations aside, we went to war to remove a dictator from power and we must see to it that Iraq can stand on its own two feet before we leave. We have a tremendous amount at stake in winning in Iraq, including the war on terror, Middle Eastern democracy and the lives of American fighting men and women.

Losing — or cutting and running — in Iraq could mean turning it over to al Qaida as a replacement for Afghanistan or proving to our potential adversaries — from China to North Korea to Iran — that the U.S. is weak.

We can all agree that's fundamentally a bad idea, so let's leave the war's origins to the historians. That's their job and, from what I understand, they really like poring over old, dusty memos in their research.

In the meantime, let's spend our political energy on winning the war instead of post facto finger-pointing. Doing so will not only bring our brave men and women home as soon as possible, it'll bring them home as victors.

I don't know about this web-site, but here's what they have...

DOWNING STREET UPDATE
Larisa Alexandrovna - Raw Story Staff

Senator Kerry (D - MA) sends letter to Senate Intelligence Committee pressing for answers on the Downing Street Memo and other Downing documents. The letter leaked to Raw Story, is also signed by Senators Johnson, Corzine, Reed, Lautenberg, Boxer, Kennedy, Harkin, Bingaman, and Durbin. The text of the letter is below.
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June 22, 2005

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The Honorable Pat Roberts, Chairman
The Honorable John D. Rockefeller, IV, Vice Chairman United States Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence
SH-211
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Roberts and Senator Rockefeller:

We write concerning your committee's vital examination of pre-war Iraq intelligence failures. In particular, we urge you to accelerate to completion the work of the so-called "Phase II" effort to assess how policy makers used the intelligence they received.

Last year your committee completed the first phase of a two-phased effort to review the pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Phase I-begun in the summer of 2003 and completed in the summer of 2004-examined the performance of the American intelligence community in the collection and analysis of intelligence prior to the war, including an examination of the quantity and quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence on ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorist groups. At the conclusion of Phase I, your committee issued an unclassified report that made an important contribution to the American public's understanding of the issues involved.

In February 2004-well over a year ago-the committee agreed to expand the scope of inquiry to include a second phase which would examine the use of intelligence by policy makers, the comparison of pre-war assessments and post-war findings, the activities of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and the Office of Special Plans in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and the use of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress.

The committee's efforts have taken on renewed urgency given recent revelations in the United Kingdom regarding the apparent minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior national security advisors. These minutes-known as the "Downing Street Memo"-raise troubling questions about the use of intelligence by American policy makers-questions that your committee is uniquely situated to address.

The memo indicates that in the summer of 2002, at a time the White House was promising Congress and the American people that war would be their last resort, that they believed military action against Iraq was "inevitable."

The minutes reveal that President "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."

The American people took the warnings that the administration sounded seriously-warnings that were echoed at the United Nations and here in Congress as we voted to give the president the authority to go to war. For the sake of our democracy and our future national security, the public must know whether such warnings were driven by facts and responsible intelligence, or by political calculation.

These issues need to be addressed with urgency. This remains a dangerous world, with American forces engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other challenges looming in Iran and North Korea. In this environment, the American public should have the highest confidence that policy makers are using intelligence objectively-never manipulating it to justify war, but always to protect the United States. The contents of the Downing Street Memo undermine this faith and only rigorous Congressional oversight can determine the truth.

We urge the committee to complete the second phase of its investigation with the maximum speed and transparency possible, producing, as it did at the end of Phase I, a comprehensive, unclassified report from which the American people can benefit directly.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/kerry_downing_street_letter_624.htm

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