H
Hank
Guest
Thanks to an honorable and patriotic Congressman,
and close to one million patriotic and enlightened
U.S. citizens, this Thursday, the criminal, incompetent,
and treasonous cowards and draft dodgers on the bu$h
regime will be challenged to explain their many lies
leading up to their illegal and immoral terror attack
on the innocent People of Iraq.
Help stop these mad men. Sign the petetions and write
your representatives demanding that bu$h be impeached.
We can't afford his lies, war crimes, and treason any
longer. The price is too high.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/061205Z.shtml
Ministers Were Told of Need for Gulf War 'Excuse'
By Michael Smith
The Sunday Times UK
Sunday 12 June 2005
"The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's inner
circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it
was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make it legal."
Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to
taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice
but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony
Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam
Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush
three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's
inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was
illegal it was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make
it legal.
This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain
should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be
using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit
in any illegal US action.
"US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in
Cyprus and Diego Garcia," the briefing paper warned. This meant that
issues of legality "would arise virtually whatever option ministers
choose with regard to UK participation".
The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among
whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the
foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The
full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday
Times.
The document said the only way the allies could justify military
action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or
rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with
the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.
"It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms
which Saddam would reject," the document says. But if he accepted it
and did not attack the allies, they would be "most unlikely" to obtain
the legal justification they needed.
The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war
contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington
summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having
to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.
The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure,
particularly on the American president, because of the damaging
revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002
and then looked for a way to justify it.
There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by
last month's publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of
citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why
the Downing Street memo (often shortened to "the DSM" on websites) has
been largely ignored by the US mainstream media.
The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89
Democratic congressmen asking if it was true - as Dearlove told the
July meeting - that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed
around the policy" in Washington.
The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media
only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press
conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that "the facts were
not fixed in any shape or form at all".
John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter
to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not
it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being "fixed"
around the policy. He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when
Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they
agreed to "manufacture" the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war.
He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own
inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the
American former ambassador who went to ***** to investigate claims
that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons
programme.
Frustrated at the refusal by the White House to respond to their
letter, the congressmen have set up a website -
www.downingstreetmemo.com - to collect signatures on a petition
demanding the same answers.
Conyers promised to deliver it to Bush once it reached 250,000
signatures. By Friday morning it already had more than 500,000 with as
many as 1m expected to have been obtained when he delivers it to the
White House on Thursday.
AfterDowningStreet.org, another website set up as a result of the
memo, is calling for a congressional committee to consider whether
Bush's actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for
impeachment.
It has been flooded with visits from people angry at what they
see as media self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have
attracted more than 1m hits a day.
Democrats.com, another website, even offered $1,000 (about £550)
to any journalist who quizzed Bush about the memo's contents, although
the Reuters reporter who asked the question last Tuesday was not aware
of the reward and has no intention of claiming it.
The complaints of media self-censorship have been backed up by
the ombudsmen of The Washington Post, The New York Times and National
Public Radio, who have questioned the lack of attention the minutes
have received from their organisations.
-
http://www.commondreams.org/
http://www.truthout.org/
http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/
http://thirdworldtraveler.com/
http://counterpunch.org/
http://responsiblewealth.org/
"Brutal and sadistic? By what girly-man standards? Compared
to how Saddam treated his prisoners, a bit of humiliation was
a walk in the park. AFAIK, No one died or even lost any blood."
-Albert Nurick, a usenet kook and blatant liar, on the rape,
torture and murder at bu$h's Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0512-10.htm
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter." -- Martin Luther King Jr.
"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them. And then
he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did."
-- George W. Bush
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the
will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the
Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
-- Adolf ******
"The tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the
US government, but the heart of the American people, and I think
it has paid great dividends for us." Condoleezza Rice
"One of the things we don't want to do is destroy the
infrastructure in Iraq because in a few days we're going
to own that country," - Tom Brokaw
Cost of probing Bill Clinton's sex life: $65 million.
Cost of probing the Columbia shuttle disaster: $50 million.
Funds assigned to independent Sept. 11 panel: $3 million.
"After all, it is the leaders of the country who determine
the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the
people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the
peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country
to danger. It works the same in any country."
-- Hermann Goering, President of the Reichstag, Nazi Party, and
Luftwaffe Commander in Chief
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."
-- Theodore Roosevelt (1918)
"You know, when bu$h said that he's against nation building,
I didn't realize that he meant only the United States"
-- Al Franken
Don't let bu$h do to the United States what his very close
friend and top campaign contributor, Ken Lay, did to Enron...
and close to one million patriotic and enlightened
U.S. citizens, this Thursday, the criminal, incompetent,
and treasonous cowards and draft dodgers on the bu$h
regime will be challenged to explain their many lies
leading up to their illegal and immoral terror attack
on the innocent People of Iraq.
Help stop these mad men. Sign the petetions and write
your representatives demanding that bu$h be impeached.
We can't afford his lies, war crimes, and treason any
longer. The price is too high.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/061205Z.shtml
Ministers Were Told of Need for Gulf War 'Excuse'
By Michael Smith
The Sunday Times UK
Sunday 12 June 2005
"The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's inner
circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it
was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make it legal."
Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to
taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice
but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony
Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam
Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush
three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's
inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was
illegal it was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make
it legal.
This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain
should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be
using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit
in any illegal US action.
"US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in
Cyprus and Diego Garcia," the briefing paper warned. This meant that
issues of legality "would arise virtually whatever option ministers
choose with regard to UK participation".
The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among
whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the
foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The
full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday
Times.
The document said the only way the allies could justify military
action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or
rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with
the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.
"It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms
which Saddam would reject," the document says. But if he accepted it
and did not attack the allies, they would be "most unlikely" to obtain
the legal justification they needed.
The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war
contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington
summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having
to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.
The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure,
particularly on the American president, because of the damaging
revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002
and then looked for a way to justify it.
There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by
last month's publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of
citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why
the Downing Street memo (often shortened to "the DSM" on websites) has
been largely ignored by the US mainstream media.
The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89
Democratic congressmen asking if it was true - as Dearlove told the
July meeting - that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed
around the policy" in Washington.
The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media
only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press
conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that "the facts were
not fixed in any shape or form at all".
John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter
to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not
it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being "fixed"
around the policy. He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when
Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they
agreed to "manufacture" the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war.
He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own
inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the
American former ambassador who went to ***** to investigate claims
that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons
programme.
Frustrated at the refusal by the White House to respond to their
letter, the congressmen have set up a website -
www.downingstreetmemo.com - to collect signatures on a petition
demanding the same answers.
Conyers promised to deliver it to Bush once it reached 250,000
signatures. By Friday morning it already had more than 500,000 with as
many as 1m expected to have been obtained when he delivers it to the
White House on Thursday.
AfterDowningStreet.org, another website set up as a result of the
memo, is calling for a congressional committee to consider whether
Bush's actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for
impeachment.
It has been flooded with visits from people angry at what they
see as media self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have
attracted more than 1m hits a day.
Democrats.com, another website, even offered $1,000 (about £550)
to any journalist who quizzed Bush about the memo's contents, although
the Reuters reporter who asked the question last Tuesday was not aware
of the reward and has no intention of claiming it.
The complaints of media self-censorship have been backed up by
the ombudsmen of The Washington Post, The New York Times and National
Public Radio, who have questioned the lack of attention the minutes
have received from their organisations.
-
http://www.commondreams.org/
http://www.truthout.org/
http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/
http://thirdworldtraveler.com/
http://counterpunch.org/
http://responsiblewealth.org/
"Brutal and sadistic? By what girly-man standards? Compared
to how Saddam treated his prisoners, a bit of humiliation was
a walk in the park. AFAIK, No one died or even lost any blood."
-Albert Nurick, a usenet kook and blatant liar, on the rape,
torture and murder at bu$h's Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0512-10.htm
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter." -- Martin Luther King Jr.
"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them. And then
he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did."
-- George W. Bush
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the
will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the
Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
-- Adolf ******
"The tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the
US government, but the heart of the American people, and I think
it has paid great dividends for us." Condoleezza Rice
"One of the things we don't want to do is destroy the
infrastructure in Iraq because in a few days we're going
to own that country," - Tom Brokaw
Cost of probing Bill Clinton's sex life: $65 million.
Cost of probing the Columbia shuttle disaster: $50 million.
Funds assigned to independent Sept. 11 panel: $3 million.
"After all, it is the leaders of the country who determine
the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the
people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the
peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country
to danger. It works the same in any country."
-- Hermann Goering, President of the Reichstag, Nazi Party, and
Luftwaffe Commander in Chief
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."
-- Theodore Roosevelt (1918)
"You know, when bu$h said that he's against nation building,
I didn't realize that he meant only the United States"
-- Al Franken
Don't let bu$h do to the United States what his very close
friend and top campaign contributor, Ken Lay, did to Enron...
4Are.13164$gL4.6716@trnddc07...