The UK Memo

In the run-up to the election in Britain, a secret memo has been leaked to the press, detailing the minutes of a July 2002, meeting of Tony Blair with his staff. Just in case we needed another data point, they discussed the recent visit to Washington. The London Times has it:

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.

OK, so, in early summer of 2002, Bush has already decided he wanted to attack. His justification had nothing to do with spreading democracy or, in fact, reality. "The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," not the other way round. The National Security Council was not interested in "the UN route", and there was little discussion about the aftermath. Oh, and by the way, timing was being set by the US mid-term elections, and they were working on cobbling together a political justification for what they wanted to do.

In Britain this is a scandal because Blair had decided to back a Bush attack, despite having been advised that it was probably illegal. Here, only bloggers seem to notice.

But since the majority of Americans in a recent poll say that Bush lied about the war, maybe actual confirmation isn't news anymore.