The British Election and the Iraq War

Rodger Payne has an interesting post over at his blog on the row over the Iraq War and its potential effect on Thursday's elections in the UK (You can also see it at Political Animal). While Blair seems set to remain Prime Minister the debate has created an opportunity to view some of the internal memos prepared for Blair before the Iraq War. Payne notes that the most interesting memo includes a rather interesting quote (highlighted below):

“Today, the Times of London printed a leaked document that purportedly demonstrates Blair's intent to go to war against Iraq long before March 2003. Minutes from a 23 July 2002 meeting were considered "extremely sensitive" and "no further copies should be made." Of course, now anyone can read it on the web. Here's a troubling paragraph based on an unnamed "C" present at the meeting (CNN reports that this is Sir Richard Dearlove):

‘C reported on his recent talks in Washington. 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.’”

Now, ‘But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy’ is an incredibly juicy line—does this mean that ‘C’ was conveying the thoughts and intentions of Washington? Or was he/she merely stating an opinion that the administration was massaging their data to fit the hypothesis that Saddam had WMDs and had connections to terrorism (terrorism that was actually a threat to the US)? Who knows. In either case this is certainly ammo for Bush critics—now the question is whether anyone in the US will pick up on this and run with it…

Filed as: Iraq War, US, International Relations