The Downing Street Minutes lays out the entire White House strategy in leading the country to war in black and white, for all to see. But more importantly, it puts it all into
context. This document is just the latest in a deluge of evidence that the Bush administration intentionally misled Congress and the American people in an effort to garner support for the Iraq War.
When all of the accumulated evidence is viewed in the context of this document, the picture it paints is a damning one for the Bush administration. THIS is how the Downing Street Minutes should be interpreted. Evidence that the White House exaggerated and misused the intelligence they were given regarding alleged Iraqi WMDs, and that they ignored and disputed evidence which countered their claims, has been accumulating since before the war began. This evidence supports the contention that, indeed,
“intelligence and facts were being fixed” to support a war they wanted, an unprecedented war of choice.
Many have been trying to bring this evidence to light since the beginning, and the movement has been steadily growing (along with growing disenchantment with the war itself). But we must remember that, after 9-11, it was tantamount to political death to challenge President Bush on matters of national security. He was enjoying 70-90% approval ratings throughout most of 2002. The nation was reeling from 9-11, and looking for vengeance. Every insider who claimed Bush was determined to go to war, every independent expert who claimed the case was weak, was treated as an unpatriotic naysayer with an agenda. This political environment allowed Bush supporters to dismiss every bit of evidence working against them as the products of: the “liberal” media, the “corrupt” U.N., the “disgruntled” former cabinet official, “that Clinton appointee”, etc. etc. When you think about it, they had to discredit nearly everyone except for Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Bush himself for their case to hold up.
But despite there having been a Senate investigation on the matter of pre-war intelligence, the real question at hand has hardly been mentioned in the press or in the halls of government. Yes, the Senate report found that the intelligence agencies were guilty of “group think” and that there was no undue pressure from the White House to yield desired results. But that really is beside the point, isn’t it? The CIA doesn’t make the decision to go to war, does it? The White House does.
Yet even the Senate report pointed out that the Bush administration's findings were "overstated" and "not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting." It is the role of the White House to take intelligence it is given and use it wisely, particularly in matters of war and peace. This is especially pertinent here given that we know the intelligence agencies (by their own admission) were largely operating in the dark regarding Iraq. We now know that many of their conclusions were rife with caveats… caveats that were made clear to the White House, caveats that the White House often ignored. Keep in mind that the White House was making what they claimed was a rock-solid case that war
had to be fought, to pre-empt a
known threat.
So the relevant question is this: “Did the Bush White House misuse, misrepresent, or exaggerate the intelligence they were given, or otherwise mislead Congress and the American people in an effort to garner support for the Iraq War?”The Senate, which had explicitly avoided this question in the first report, had promised to take up the issue at a later date. That promise has, of course, been quietly abandoned. Well, we now know that the major Bush rationale for war was completely without basis. We now know that the White House was wrong on nearly every point they made about the need for this war. With the war dragging on, and nothing going the way the Bush administration had claimed it would, perhaps now the press and the public will be more willing to ask this question.
The Downing Street document is not, in and of itself, sufficient evidence to prove that the Bush administration is guilty of everything its critics claim. But the release of the Downing Street Minutes spells out the entire process of what critics have been claiming administration has done, in black and white… in an official government document, no less.
At the very least, it demonstrates that, before the war, even the highest levels of British government believed that the Bush administration was indeed guilty of everything its critics have claimed. But more importantly, what the release of the Downing Street Minutes does is this: it places all of the accumulated evidence into context, at a time that is ripe to ask the question posed above. Evidence to answer that question has been accumulating since many months before the war began. This evidence (for many reasons, including those mentioned above), has been dismissed on a case-by-case basis and has failed to register.
But the release of the Downing Street Minutes ties it all together. The question again:
“Did the Bush White House misuse, misrepresent, or exaggerate the intelligence they were given, or otherwise mislead Congress and the American people in an effort to garner support for the Iraq War?”When taken in sum, in the context of the Downing Street Minutes, this evidence adds up to a clear, resounding, perhaps even deafening: YES. The next step those who were opposed to this war should take is to gather all of the existing evidence, and point out that it perfectly backs up what the Downing Street Minutes spell out so starkly in black and white. A partial list of the evidence that makes the Downing Street Minutes so meaningful can be found in the citations below. The Downing Street Minutes provides the proper context in which to view all of the accrued evidence.
This evidence, especially in light of this newly-revealed document, paints is a damning picture for the Bush administration. Bush, Aides Ignored CIA Caveats on Iraq - Clear-Cut Assertions Were Made Before Arms Assessment Was Completed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20194-2004Feb6.htmlBush on Iraq - A compilation of “The Bush administration’s misleading and inaccurate public statements on Iraq”
http://www.bushoniraq.com/They Knew… Despite the whitewash, we now know that the Bush administration was warned before the war that its Iraq claims were weak
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/they_knew_0802/The lies that led to war - A leaked British memo, and other documents, make it clear that Bush intended all along to invade Iraq -- and lied about it to the American people. The full gravity of his offense has not yet sunk in.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/19/lies/index_np.html
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