British memos air secrets of 2 governments

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/news/esullivan/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1119087563302511.xml&coll=2

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Elizabeth Sullivan

Plain Dealer Columnist

More important than the "smoking gun" aspect of a series of 2002 British memos that say U.S. intelligence was being "fixed" for war in Iraq is the nature of the smoke itself.

The series of top-secret memos, leaked to a British reporter who retyped them to protect the source, then shared them with other news organizations, reveal the extent to which U.S. officials told British officials stuff they weren't willing to tell average Americans.

Things like:

A de facto decision was made to go to war seven months before President George W. Bush says he decided...