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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000955273More Life on 'Downing Street' with Leak of New Document in London
By E&P Staff
Published: June 11, 2005 10:00 PM ET
NEW YORK Just as the U.S. media attempts—-albeit a month late—-to get on top of the so-called “Downing Street Memo,” the Sunday Times in London reports another leaked document which confirms and goes behind the message of the memo.
“Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal,” the Sunday Times reports.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Prime Minister Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier. The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.
This was required because the American military would be using British bases in any invasion, making England complicit in any illegal U.S. action.
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