Yes, the DSM is evidence that Bush lied to make the case for war, and also that Bush had made the decision well before UN or Congressional authorization. But let's bring some attention to an even more egregious revelation, the scheme to 'wrongfoot Saddam'. Put the first two things together with the wrongfooting, and you have a third bullet in the smoking gun.
Congress and the UN did not authorize war, they authorized an ultimatum backed up by the threat of war. Bush's fraud was not just lying to get the ultimatum issued, but concocting a scheme so that Saddam would either defy the ultimatum, or Bush could lie about Saddam's defiance. Thus, not only did Bush commit fraud to get authority for war, but he knowingly, fraudulently, exceeded the authority that was given. Is that not a brazen violation of both international and US law?
Bullet Tree is also significant because it provides powerful evidence in support of Bullets One and Two.
Look at the audacity of the scheme. Invoking visions of mushroom-shaped clouds and other nasties, Bush gets Congress to authorize war if Saddam does not voluntarily disarm. Bush takes this authority, and his fabricated WMD dog-and-pony show, and gets a UN resolution demanding that Saddam cooperate with a new inspections regime.
The neocon hope was that Saddam would bridle at the UN demands, refuse cooperation, and thereby give Bush his excuse to invade. Saddam did not oblige. But that did not matter.
It was a Catch-22; there was no way Saddam could win. Bush knew that Saddam had lots of WMD, so if Saddam failed to disclose WMDs, that was proof that he was not cooperating. Let the bombing begin.
(It was a pretty blatant rigging too. In retrospect, it is apparent that Bush was desperate to terminate the inspectors' mission, lest inspections reveal the phoniness of the intel. Compare another piece of evidence newly surfaced, that John Bolton tried to get fired a UN agent who was attempting to restart chemical weapons inspections.)
So there's Bullet Three.
Now let's turn to Bullet Three as evidence of Bullets One and Two, that Bush lied to justify a war he was determined to have.
The DSM are the minutes of a meeting of conspirators, planning their crime. The scheme was carried out by the conspirators exactly as planned. Is that not powerful evidence that the DSM is a true and accurate memorandum of what Bush and Blair were up to--Blair's and Bush's denials notwithstanding? Look how it all unfolded:
First, according to the DSM, the conspirators would try to wrongfoot Saddam by bombing, hoping to provoke a counter attack. Sure enough, we bombed the hell out of Iraq, in April 2003, almost a year before the invasion.
Saddam did not take the bait. But the conspirators anticipated that. They had a Plan B, getting the UN to make an ultimatum, in the hopes Saddam would defy it. That, too, came to pass.
Now here's where the proof becomes overwhelming, IMO. With weapons inspections in full swing, Saddam fully cooperating with the UN resolution, Bush nonetheless declared that Saddam had failed the test, and the war was on.
I'm sure we all remember the surreality of the moment. WTF was the urgency, that the inspectors had to be kicked out immediately, that the war could not wait? And then the even greater WTF moment, for me, when Bush later said that the war had been justified because Saddam refused to allow the inspectors back in. Hunh?Hunh?Hunh? Bush is either the biggest idiot conspirator the world has ever seen on the political stage, or the most brazen. The script was, Saddam was going to defy the UN resolution and that would give a legal basis to invade. And Bush by god was sticking with the script. Even if reality interfered.
I mean, if this gun were smoking any more furiously, it would be radioactive.