WP: Deep Throat of Downing Street

[Pirate Smile]

Deep Throat of Downing Street

By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 14, 2005; 10:18 AM

Deep Throat now has an English accent.

Reporter Michael Smith of the Sunday Times of London scored an international scoop this weekend with a story about a sensational Iraq war document provided by an anonymous high-level official source who, like W. Mark Felt of Watergate fame, seems to have taken up a mission of helping an investigative reporter probe allegations of misconduct and cover-up.

The document, a British government briefing paper from July 21, 2002, informed Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet ministers eight months before the invasion of Iraq that Blair had already committed Britain to supporting an American-led attack and that "they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal."

The eight-page document labeled "PERSONAL SECRET UK EYES ONLY," whose authenticity has been confirmed by British government sources, also served as the basis of a Page 1 story in the Sunday Washington Post. Staff writer Walter Pincus emphasized a different passage in the document, which said "the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a " protracted and costly" postwar occupation of Iraq.

The Sunday Times story made headlines from Australia to China to Pakistan. Like the now-famous Downing Street Memo, published by the Sunday Times on May 1, the revelation raises the intriguing question of who is risking jail time by leaking top-secret documents to Smith. Just as students of the Watergate scandal pondered for years the identity of the high-level source who guided Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, students of the Iraq war will wonder about the person (or persons) behind The Sunday Times's reports.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061400494.html

[Pirate Smile]

1. Let's hope this is true.

"As U.S. media attention on the Downing Street Memo continues to grow, it is safe to say that we have probably not heard the last from the British Deep Throat."

[lenidog]

5. I am sure we wont be hearing the last from him. I just not sure anymore

if he is on our side.

[burrowowl]

2. Well

seems to have made the news everywhere in the World, except the U$.
Is the U$ part of the WORLD! Talk about disconnect, sorry I meant 'disassembly', er! I mean: PLANET EARTH TO US!

[halobeam]

3. I don't understand what you mean.

It may be late, but it's right here in the USA (Times, now the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC just covered it.) I say FINALLY, AND.....give me more! I want it on EVERY PAPER. It's NOT enough, but it has made it's way here and IMO...it's only just begun.


Now, to add to the first reply, YES... I hope too

[burrowowl]

4. Have you seen

it in your local papers, on broadcast not cable, NPR hasn't made much of it, etc.
I'll bet a higher percentage of the world of people on the street is aware of the DSM as opposed to US people on the street! And do Americans understand!?! what this means? Others do!

[lenidog]

6. Sorry testing

[peacetalksforall]

7. Is the Sunday TImes a Murdoch paper? n/t

[evermind]

8. Yes, but FWIW, there's an agreement he made that gives

it editorial autonomy, as a condition of buying it.

[merwin]

9. Murdoch is in a funny place with this. I dont think he's too keen on Blair

and these documents would definately help to discredit him... the other side of it is that it will also take down GW and his administration.

[peacetalksforall]

10. That's what I don't get. Murdoch is part of the cabal with Fox and the

New York Daily Post, plus his other outlets that help start or spread the message.

I'm not aware of any betrayals that are interwoven here. We all know that to be a friend of the cabal one day, means you're dropped from an airplane or tall building the next.

Noriega - still rotting in jail in Dade Co. Hussein - still rotting in jail somewhere?

[merwin]

11. That's what I'm trying to say...

For him to get rid of Blair, he'd have to take down Bush too. Do you think that Murdoch really cares about Bush?

[ikri]

12. Discredit Blair?

Why?

We've had an election over here. Blair is safe for the next 5 years or until he chooses to resign, probably 2007/08.

Because he and the Labour party are safe for the foreseeable future, I'd not be too shocked to learn that these leaks came from within the cabinet.

The Labour party was not pleased when Karl Rove agreed to aid the Tory party in the May elections, maybe this is the payback.

[merwin]

13. Just because he's in office for the next 5 years doesn't mean they can't

attempt to make him extremely unpopular with the people. Although, I do like your angle of coming from the inside.

[Fire Walk With Me]

14. Someone who has as much trouble with grinning snake oil salesmen

as I do. Bless them, whoever they are. May they outlast the monsters.

[Barrett808]

15. I propose we call "Deep Throat of Downing Street"..."Mary Carey"

What do you think?

[doublethink]

16. Kick ......

:kick: :)