NY Times tries to discredit DSM

[housewolf]

Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 13, 2005

WASHINGTON, June 12 - 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. The memo also said American planning, in the eyes of Mr. Blair's aides, was "virtually silent" on the problems of a postwar occupation.

"A postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise," warned the memorandum, prepared July 21 for a meeting with Mr. Blair a few days later. It also appeared to take as a given the presence of illicit weapons in Iraq - an assumption that later proved almost entirely wrong - and warned that merely removing Saddam Hussein from power would not guarantee that those weapons could be secured.

<snip>

The publication of the memorandum is significant because a previously leaked document, now known as the Downing Street Memo, appeared to suggest that a decision to go to war may have been made that summer. In Washington last week, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair denied that they made any decision in 2002, and suggested that the memorandum was being misinterpreted.

"No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all," Mr. Blair said, adding that "no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me."

<snip>


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/politics/13downing.html?


Some commentary on the article from
http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1079

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.

<snip>


more...
http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1079

[Hissyspit]

1. Thinkprogress.org's response to the article...

Re: sloppy journalism/factually incorrect.

It's also just DUMB.

[megatherium]

2. They can try wallpapering over the ugly truth all they want.

It won't work. More and more people are realizing the war was not legal or justified.