Smoking gun emails reveal Blair's 'deal in blood' with George Bush over Iraq (tr)

Daily Mail ^ | 19:49 EST, 17 October 2015 | Glen Owen and William Lowther

[Chode]

no lie, figuring that out from lights on a board would take me a calculator

[Bruce Kurtz]

You are the only person to bring this up. For the last week or so, Hillary has claimed that she neither received or sent any email with classified markings. The document clearly shows the Secret/Noforn classification. The line below it says: DECL: 04/01/12. I guess that means declassified on 1 Apr 2012. The question is, did she have this on her server before it became unclassified?

[SubMareener]

Right on! Thanks1 That is why I posted it in the first place. I thought it was obvious, but I should have pointed it out initially.

Also it shed some light on the mindset of the Bush administration. There never was any question about a diplomatic solution with Iraq. It was going to be an invasion from the start. The diplomatic efforts were just to build a coalition for the operation and get Congressional approval. Undoubtedly a much more Constitutional way than Obama has used, so that is to Bush’s credit. The WMD intelligence turned out to be from a single source with an agenda. It only looked like multiple sources because it came through multiple intelligence services. Saddam never should have tried to kill GWB’s daddy!

[Theoria]

'Iraq was stable until soetoro surrendered. Is that Bush's fault too?'

It was not stable, nor would having troops there ever secure the situation. We are dealing with a transnational force of Islam. Saddam kept it stable enough for US, that balance was tipped unneeded.

There was no peace, it was simply a ebb in the war. That is the nature of the war of the flea that terrorist and insurgents wage. Unless we have total war, which we are inclined to do, being there would have only killed more of our boys.

As for the decaying weapons you can being your reading here. The DoD didn't even honor our men by trying to help them.

'The American government withheld word about its discoveries even from troops it sent into harm’s way and from military doctors. The government’s secrecy, victims and participants said, prevented troops in some of the war’s most dangerous jobs from receiving proper medical care and official recognition of their wounds.'

[GreyFriar]

Under EO-12958, “DECL: 04/01/12” meant that it would be reviewed for declassification on that date.

Also note at the bottom of the page that it was ‘declassified’ with redaction’s on Jan 23, 2014, in response to a FOIA request.

[zot]

Thanks for the ping to this CLASSIFIED document.

[GreyFriar]

Regarding mindset of the Bush Administration, this paragraph of Thomas Lifson’s article that I just posted as a separate thread is significant:

“I think the Daily Mail has buried the lead. For one thing, the secret memo to President Bush authored by then US secretary of State Colin Powell, rather than proving Blair was committed to war clearly states, “On Iraq, Blair will be with us SHOULD military operations BE NECESSARY (caps mine, GF).” That is a contingency. If diplomacy had succeeded, then Blair would not be committed to war.”

This was CONTINGENCY planning. in 20 years in the Army, I learned that there are always ‘contingency plans’ so if what you are planning doesn’t go ‘as planned’ you have a “plan B” to fall back on. And there was plenty of WMD stuff in Iraq, it was just not all nuclear related. Saddam had a record of using chemical weapons against the Kurds and against the Iranians. And we shipped out a couple of hundred tons of Yellow Cake after 2003, and it is Yellow Cake that is used to get U-235 for nukes.

[Bruce Kurtz]

Thanks about the DECL clarification. It is now obvious she had classified info on her server. The press should be all over this but they aren’t

[Eagles6]

That's the point. There were chemical weapons that saddam said that he didn't have.

Decaying is a misnomer. Degrading at a very slow rate would be more apt.

Let's not forget that saddam fired on coalition aircraft on a daily basis. The US fielded forces to invade in 1998 when saddam back down and started playing cat and mouse with inspectors again.

Saddam's son in law defected to Jordan in 96 and said that saddam was still building wmd.

In 96 saddam invited ayman al zawahiri to iraq to discuss mutual operatioons.

zarqawi of al queda was at ansar al islam in iraq, working on wmd at saddams invite.

Let's not forget Oil For Food, the yellowcake, convoys of trucks into Syria before the war, The Bomb in My Back Yard, the 10s of thousands of chemical weapons now in isis hands that were in UN sealed bunkers.

That that there were no wmds, that saddam wouldn't work with jihadist and that Iraq was no threat are all myths

Revisionist history made up by the left to hurt the war effort.

After 9/11 I don't see how we couldn't deal with the threat projected by Iraq.

As for our troops being injured by mishandled wmd and denied care, I belive that it's true but it's not relevant to this discussion about whether we should have gone into Iraq.

[Theoria]

'That's the point. There were chemical weapons that saddam said that he didn't have.'

We just disagree. We knew he had decaying and aging weapons. The argument was for new and active chemical and biological program along with a clandestine nuclear program that was only six months from a crude nuclear device that threatened the US.

[Eagles6]

You are incorrect but we will agree to disagree.

We do agree that islam is the threat.

Take care.