Downing Street Memo.

Hobbes

Appears the NYT got thier hands on the full document.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/europe/27memo.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1143522000&en=1a8220fd45b2aca0&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

All I can say is.. how the fuk is this guy still president. Here is some gem bits from the memo...

"The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo says, attributing the idea to Mr. Bush. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

It also described the president as saying, "The U.S. might be able to bring out a defector who could give a public presentation about Saddam's W.M.D," referring to weapons of mass destruction.

A brief clause in the memo refers to a third possibility, mentioned by Mr. Bush, a proposal to assassinate Saddam Hussein. The memo does not indicate how Mr. Blair responded to the idea.

Manic Moran

I hate to say it, but that bit you quote was already public knowledge. I recall reading it some time ago.

NTM

Hobbes

Manic Moran wrote:

I hate to say it, but that bit you quote was already public knowledge. I recall reading it some time ago.

NTM

Actually I don't recall seeing the bit about the UN mock planes until now and it is being cited as new stuff. The initial memo released was not the full memo only the first 3 pages.

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/docs/memotext.pdf

Actually now that I check around the news is about two month old. Strange its not getting any major press until now.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/020206goadsaddam.htm

bonkey

Manic Moran wrote:

I hate to say it, but that bit you quote was already public knowledge. I recall reading it some time ago.

Ah yes...but when it was public knowledge some time ago, it was because a British paper leaked it.

Both 10 Downing St. and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. came out and decried it at the time as a load of manufactured hokum, if memory serves.

The NYT article is more interesting from this perspective. It is not what is contained in the article, but rather that both the British and American governments appear to have clearly lied through their teeth when discrediting the existence of this memo previously.

The amount of attention which it has been given, however, is telling. I saw one pundit refer to it as "scandal fatigue" - which may also explain why US-focussed political threads have become so scarce and dead in this forum: we already know what will happen if anyone pushes the story. The Whitehouse will deny, refuse to comment, stall on launching an investigation.....the usual. Meanwhile, administration supporters will level claims of anti-somethingness at the critics, explain why even were this story true it would not be damning for some flawed binary-choice logic, and so on and so forth.

And through it all, the boys at 1600 would continue to tread their path unchanged.

jc

damien

Read about the U.N. colours and the plane before. Been in public domain for a while.

flogen

Yeah, I can't remember the guys name, but some guy was on Newsnight many weeks ago plugging his book which containted the claim.

The question being, how on earth did Bush think it would work? If Saddam did shoot down a US plane in UN colours and the US tried to use it as a reason to attack, surely the UN would notice that they didn't have any plane in that airspace and that they weren't missing a plane at all?? I guess someone had to point that out to him.

edit: it's mentioned in the NY Times piece, "Lawless World" by Philippe Sands