Just how serious is the situation with the DSM for PM Tony Blair...

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Conspiracy: the Downing Street memo
David Edwards, www.coldtype.net


David Edwards is co-editor of the London (UK) media watchdog MediaLens http://www.medialens.org


July 6, 2005

At the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal in 1946, Nazi leaders like Goering, von Ribbentrop, Jodl and Streicher were sentenced to death by hanging for "Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing." (Article 6, Charter of the International Military Tribunal, August 8, 1945, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/N
urembergIndictments.html)

It is remarkable, but now indisputable, that the current leaders of Britain and the United States are responsible for just such a conspiracy. Carne Ross, a key Foreign Office diplomat responsible for liaising with UN inspectors in Iraq, said British government claims about Iraq’s weapons programme had been "totally implausible". Ross told the Guardian: "I’d read the intelligence on WMD for four and a half years, and there’s no way that it could sustain the case that the government was presenting. All of my colleagues knew that, too. There was a very good alternative to war that was never properly pursued, which was to close down Saddam’s sources of illegal revenue." (Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘WMD claims were "totally implausible",’ The Guardian, June 20, 2005)

But an alternative to war was never an option for the Bush-Blair alliance. On May 1, the Sunday Times published a leaked Downing Street memo that hammered the final nails in the coffin of Tony Blair’s credibility. The document – minutes of a highly confidential meeting dated July 23, 2002 – was written eight months before the invasion began. John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee (JIC), opened proceedings by summarising the intelligence and latest JIC assessment: "Saddam’s regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action." (Michael Smith, ‘Blair planned Iraq war from start,’ Sunday Times,May 1, 2005)

As Scarlett’s initial statement makes clear, it was understood by everyone present that the issue at hand was how best to overthrow Saddam Hussein, not how to neutralise the supposed threat from any weapons of mass destruction. Indeed little mention was made of WMD. The memo then records the words of Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British intelligence service MI6, who commented on his recent visit to Washington where he had held talks with George Tenet, director of the CIA: "There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." (ibid)

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Why is it wrong for even well-meaning people to participate in fundamentally corrupt systems? Tolstoy explained: "It is harmful because enlightened, good and honest people, by entering the ranks of the government, give it a moral authority which but for them it would not possess. If the government were made up entirely of that coarse element – the violators, self-seekers, and flatterers – who form its core, it could not continue to exist. The fact that honest and enlightened people are found who participate in the affairs of the government gives it whatever it possesses of moral prestige." (Tolstoy, ‘Letters to the liberals,’ Writings On Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence,New Society, 1987, p.192)

The same is true of the blood-soaked "moral prestige" of today’s corporate media.

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<link> http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m13434&l=i&size=1&hd=0

That last paragraph applies to BushCo and this country, USA, as well.