jennifer5
18.06.05, 20:04
.... na to ze jest tp prywatna awantura busha i jego bandy. Ile jeszcze
trzeba dowodow zeby takigo wsadzic za kratki?
When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser dined with
Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the then-U.S. national security
adviser didn't want to discuss Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida. She wanted to
talk about "regime change" in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led
invasion more than a year later.
"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far
frankly unconvincing," Ricketts says in the memo. "For Iraq, `regime change'
does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050618/ap_on_re_eu/downing_street_memos_1;_ylt=Ao.99XUwYXGhquEQz2QNwcVX6GMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
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By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer
LONDON - When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser
dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the then-U.S.
national security adviser didn't want to discuss Osama bin Laden or al-
Qaida. She wanted to talk about "regime change" in Iraq, setting the
stage for the U.S.-led invasion more than a year later.
President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials worried the
White House was rushing to war, according to a series of leaked secret
Downing Street memos that have renewed questions and debate about
Washington's motives for ousting Saddam Hussein.
In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts
openly asks whether the Bush administration had a clear and compelling
military reason for war.
"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far
frankly unconvincing," Ricketts says in the memo. "For Iraq, `regime change'
does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."
The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about Saddam's alleged
weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate he was determined to go to war
as America's top ally, even though his government thought a pre-emptive
attack may be illegal under international law.
"The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD
programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September," said a typed copy of
a March 22, 2002 memo obtained Thursday by The Associated Press and written
to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
"But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show much advance
in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW (chemical or biological
weapons) fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as
we know, been stepped up."
Details from Rice's dinner conversation also are included in one of the
secret memos from 2002, which reveal British concerns about both the invasion
and poor postwar planning by the Bush administration, which critics say has
allowed the Iraqi insurgency to rage.
The eight memos — all labeled "secret" or "confidential" — were first
obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The
Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.
Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the
documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the
originals.
The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated
widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content
appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret
nature of the material.
The eight documents total 36 pages and range from 10-page and eight-page
studies on military and legal options in Iraq, to brief memorandums from
British officials and the minutes of a private meeting held by Blair and his
top advisers.
Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert who teaches at Queen Mary College, University of
London, said the documents confirmed what post-invasion investigations have
found.
"The documents show what official inquiries in Britain already have, that the
case of weapons of mass destruction was based on thin intelligence and was
used to inflate the evidence to the level of mendacity," Dodge said. "In
going to war with Bush, Blair defended the special relationship between the
two countries, like other British leaders have. But he knew he was taking a
huge political risk at home. He knew the war's legality was questionable and
its unpopularity was never in doubt."
Dodge said the memos also show Blair was aware of the postwar instability
that was likely among Iraq's complex mix of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds once
Saddam was defeated.
The British documents confirm, as well, that "soon after 9/11 happened, the
starting gun was fired for the invasion of Iraq," Dodge said.
Speculation about if and when that would happen ran throughout 2002.
On Jan. 29, Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea "an axis of evil." U.S.
newspapers began reporting soon afterward that a U.S.-led war with Iraq was
possible.
On Oct. 16, the U.S. Congress voted to authorize Bush to go to war against
Iraq. On Feb. 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the
Bush administration's case about Iraq's weapons to the U.N. Security Council.
On March 19-20, the U.S.-led invasion began.
Bush and Blair both have been criticized at home since their WMD claims about
Iraq proved false. But both have been re-elected, defending the conflict for
removing a brutal dictator and promoting democracy in Iraq. Both
administrations have dismissed the memos as old news.
Details of the memos appeared in papers early last month but the news in
Britain quickly turned to the election that returned Blair to power. In the
United States, however, details of the memos' contents reignited a firestorm,
especially among Democratic critics of Bush.
It was in a March 14, 2002, memo that Blair's chief foreign policy adviser,
David Manning, told the prime minister about the dinner he had just had with
Rice in Washington.
"We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq," wrote Manning, who's now British
ambassador to the United States. Rice is now Bush's secretary of state.
"It is clear that Bush is grateful for your (Blair's) support and has
registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your
support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a
public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you
would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change,
it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not
an option."
Manning said, "Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed." But he also
said there were signs of greater awareness of the practical difficulties and
political risks.
Blair was to meet with Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on April 8, and
Manning told his boss: "No doubt we need to keep a sense of perspective. But
my talks with Condi convinced me that Bush wants to hear your views on Iraq
before taking decisions. He also wants your support. He is still smarting
from the comments by other European leaders on his Iraq policy."
A July 21 briefing paper given to officials preparing for a July 23 meeting
with Blair says officials must "ensure that the benefits of action outweigh
the risks."
"In particular we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action
would match our objective... A postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a
protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the
U.S. military plans
