UK Leaks on Iraq War - The "Real" Memogate

Thank you, Knight Ridder Newspapers.

You had the courage and the simple journalistic integrity to pick up the story of the new Memogate - the one where leaked documents from the UK prove Bush and Co. deliberately manipulated intelligence estimates to justify an invasion of Iraq and then rigged investigations to pin the blame on "faulty intelligence analysis" after the fact.

I honestly didn't expect to see the US mainstream media make anything of this.

Here's a snip from the KR article.

The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service.

The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war.

"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable," the MI-6 chief said at the meeting, according to the memo. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," weapons of mass destruction.

The memo said "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

The White House has repeatedly denied accusations made by several top foreign officials that it manipulated intelligence estimates to justify an invasion of Iraq.

It has instead pointed to the conclusions of two studies, one by the Senate Intelligence Committee and one by a presidentially appointed panel, that cite serious failures by the CIA and other agencies in judging Saddam's weapons programs.

The article notes that the British government has not disavowed the leaked documents' accuracy, and that the Bush administration simply refuse to comment. It also quotes an anonymous senior former official in the Bush administration as saying the leaks present "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" during the M.I.6 chief's visit to Washington.

Meanwhile, in no-doubt closely related news, The Department of Defense is pushing for a new rule that would make it easier for the Pentagon to withhold information on United States military operations and Defence Intelligence Agency work from the public.

According to the text of the provision proposed in the authorization bill, a Freedom of Information Act release could be denied for any information related to "the conduct of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence operations or intelligence or security liaison arrangements or information exchanges with foreign governments or their intelligence or security services." (emphasis mine)

Now that it has actually impacted the US, don't expect the "Real" Memogate to go away - Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is circulating a letter among fellow Democrats asking Bush for an explanation of the UK documents' charges, an aide said.

I smell an impeachment investigation.