New York Times Tries To Kill Downing Street Story

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1079

New York Times Tries To Kill Downing Street Story
In today’s New York Times, David Sanger tries to discredit the Downing Street Memo. His lede:

A memorandum written by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s cabinet office in late July 2002 explicitly states that the Bush administration had made “no political decisions” to invade Iraq, but that American military planning for the possibility was advanced.

Sanger presumes that “political decisions” refers to the actual decision to go to war. Based on that presumption, he concludes that the memo shows the Bush administration hadn’t decided whether or not to invade Iraq.

This is both sloppy journalism, and factually incorrect. The other instances where “political” is used in the memo suggest the memo’s author had a very different sense of the word in mind, one related to the shaping of public opinion and the construction of a legal edifice that would justify Britain’s participation in the U.S. attack.

Consider the other four references to “political” in the document. In the first, on page 1, the author speaks of the desire to “engage the US on the need to set military plans within a realistic political strategy,” which includes “creating the conditions necessary to justify government military action, which might include an ultimatum for the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq.”

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[racaulk]

1. Wow, I can't say I'm too surprised!

It seems like all of the media whores in the major national newspapers are trying to kill this story today. Coincidence? I think not...

:grr::mad:

[Benhurst]

2. Their desperation is showing. Trotting in the New York Times,

the mother of all media whores, proves it.

[AX10]

5. It may have not been so bad had Nixon "shut down" the NYT.

[Dora]

3. I saw this article

And shook my head in disgust.

[LightningFlash]

4. Too late for them...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/ricketts020322.pdf

It was always about Regime change, Regime change, Regime change..The decision to go to war had already been made.

http://afterdowningstreet.org/

[wurzel]

6. It is a total double standard.

In Clinton's (and later Gore's) case whatever was said or done was was allotted the worst possible interpretation by the media every single time. Today Bush is relentlessly given all possible benefit of any doubt.

[barbaraann]

9. Bush could stab someone to death on national tv and the media

would say that he was performing surgery to save someone from a terrible disease caused by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

[wurzel]

16. Kick on that!

[lebkuchen]

7. Does it matter?

Won't stop the hole in the dyke of low (caliber) enlistments, declining reenlistments and the casualty rate, not without a draft, and still, a draft presents a problem to morale, readiness, and competence.

When new enlistees who signed up for the $20,000 bonus realize that enlistees signing up after them had received $40,000, the morale problem will dig itself in even deeper. Case in point: the story of the marines and the civilian defense contractors.

Lots more of the same treatment is coming down the pipeline for Bush.

[EVDebs]

8. More "Operation Mockingbird".....the truth is not mocked !

[Stirk]

10. This is from the opinion page, correct?

[WePurrsevere]

19. Doesn't read like an "opinion" but news

Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made

It's supposedly a regular memo not actual minutes like Downing Street is.

[wookie294]

11. Don't forget - The NY Times supported the Iraq invasion

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times editorial boards supported the invasion of Iraq and continue to support the Quagmire. "Liberal media" my ass!

[Tsiyu]

12. He must be another of KKKarl's Lovers

Honestly, anyone who defends or protects this administration is either having sex with a high level Repuke or is being blackmailed by them.

No one with integrity or intellect would support this evil regime or try to hide their evils from us. No one but bedmates and the blackmailed....

NYT is dead as far as I am concerned. A waste of paper and a waste of bandwidth. And they don't even care!!!!

[JDPriestly]

13. The MSN reaction is our fault.

We have focused on whether the DSM shows that Bush lied. It really doesn't. It has very little to do with Bush. Besides, the Mainstream press (whether the NY or LA Times) is unmoved by that argument. To them, the fact that Bush lied is just old news.

What the DSM really shows is that Tony Blair was warned that he would be violating international law if he invaded Iraq without obtaining a United Nations resolution authorizing the invasion. Nevertheless, he invaded Iraq without such a resolution.

In the recent Bush/Blair press conference, Blair argued that everything was OK because he and Bush and gone the UN route. Sure, he and Bush went the UN route, but they were resoundingly rejected when they tried to get a resolution authorizing the war in January through March 2003. Resolution 1441 to which Blair referred and which was passed in November 2002 authorized the re-entry of UN weapons inspectors into Iraq, but it did not authorize the invasion -- not at all. Resolution 1441 was not a sufficient basis for going into Iraq. On February 14, 2003, Blix spoke to the United Nations on the progress of the inspections in Iraq. His report was rather positive and certainly did not justify Bush and Blair's invasion just weeks later.
This story was told in the May 2005 article, The Path to War, in Vanity Fair. I do not have a link to that article. You may need to get it at a library.

We are making mistakes and missing opportunities. Instead of expecting the press to cover this, we should be turning to an international court to petition them to try Blair for war crimes. If we do that, we can obtain information that will show whether Bush also should be tried. That is the route we have to take now. We should not worry about the press. They will report this story if an international tribunal takes it up. The DSM and other papers related to it may be sufficient evidence to get a court to take up the Blair case. I have no clue as to how to do that. Does anyone else?

[wtbymark]

14. "creating the condition" IS A CRIME

i don't even know what to say - this is stupid beyond stupid

[Roland99]

15. Is Sanger a bit biased to the right?

http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=DAVID%20E.%20SANGER&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=DAVID%20E.%20SANGER&inline=nyt-per


I glean a sort of pro-admin bias a bit, but not overt like this piece.

[JDPriestly]

17. Links to important documents

Here is the United Nations Resolution 1441

http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N02/682/26/PDF/N0268226.pdf?OpenElement

This is the resolution Tony Blair referred to in the recent press conferenced in which he responded to a question on the DSM. It does not authorize war in Iraq and did not respond adequately to the concerns that Blair's advisors raised as to the legitimacy of the war under international law.


Here is the link to the Blix report on the progress of the UN inspections team in Iraq, which was presented to the Security Council on February 14, 2003.

http://www.themoderntribune.com/hans_blix_report_to_un_february_14_2003_full_text_-_war_on_iraq_-_inspections.htm

Read the DSMs in the context of these documents, and I think you see that lying is the least of the problems of Bush and Blair. The real problem is that the war was illegal and Blair's advisors had warned him that it would be unless he got UN support. He and Bush tried to get that support but could not. An international war crimes trial is needed.

[Tuesday_Morning]

18. both the Washpost and NYT...

are CHERRY-PICKING the DSM!