Michael Lewis of Cambridge Univ. posted six UK docs about Iraq (in PDF format) on cryptome.org last Oct., as he's confirmed to me via email. Yesterday NBC confirmed their authenticity, adding fuel to the campaign to focus attention on DSM and related issues. Many of the most interesting parts of the new docs have already been quoted extensively in public, especially in the March 20, 2005 BBC Panorama program. So it may help us only somewhat to have the remainder of their texts available to make the case about DSM. The new docs will greatly complicate discussion; most date months earlier than DSM, and they reveal a Blair government still groping its way toward a policy consistent with Bush's Iraq policy, such as they understood it to be. I'm also worried that one the largest document has been tampered with before it got scanned--see below. Yet the very fact that new documents have `appeared', and that the MSM took part in investigating them, ought to boost the story's profile in that sector. This could signal that the damn is bursting, as highacidity says in her diary.
This week we need to focus attention first on encouraging the MSM to cover Rep. Conyers' hearings on Thursday (after which there'll also be a march to the WH to deliver a letter to President Bush that now has well over 500,000 signatures). We need to show the MSM that the DSM story has evolved considerably in recent days, and point out to them new avenues for investigation, in order to ensure that they will continue to pursue it.
I think we should also seriously discuss long term strategy now. To continue with the military metaphor, the DSM story has now broken out of the enclave in which its been pinned down; we ought to have a coherent plan for how we can branch out into multiple prongs of attack. We should not risk allowing a single, main thrust (such as Conyers' investigation) to become stalled, thereby consigning the movement to a slow death. In this regard, I've been impressed by two recent posts on DSM by Joe Logan at http://www.publicorgtheory.com/ as well as Billmon's advice (which I mentioned in recent diaries) that we need to get the stalled Senate Intelligence Committee's WMD investigation back up and running. That is one prong of attack that I'm endorsing as of today (see below for contact info). There are other prongs that we need to consider, some obvious and others less so. Let's discuss this in earnest, now.
In your letters, please mention the Conyers' hearings and the new Military Action memo published on Sunday, as well as at least one of the following; the six `new'UK memos; the Bolton/Bustani story about the blocking of chemical weapons inspections in Iraq; the RAF documents; Bush's stone-walling last Tuesday. We need to (a) show the media why and how the story has evolved in the last few days or weeks, and (b) convince them that they need to print the full text or at least publish a careful overview of the full text. That will make it much more likely they will dig deeper into the story and begin asking questions, rather than simply reporting that "critics say `X' but Bush says `ybrguziiipca'."
Here is the trio of media contacts for today. Please email, call, or fax all three of them, and come back tomorrow for the next installment in this campaign:
(A) Miami Herald, National News Desk. email: nationalnews@herald.com phone: 305-376-3721
(B) Cleveland Plain Dealer. Managing Editor Tom O'Hara. email: Tohara@plaind.com phone 216-999-4737
OR National Editor Daryl Kannberg. email: dkannber@plaind.com phone: 216-999-4865
ORWashington Bureau. email: WashingtonBureau@plaind.com
(C) Denver Post, National Editor Mark Harden. email: mharden@denverpost.com phone: 303-820-1670
I find no evidence that the Cleveland Plain Dealer has published on DSM at all. The Denver Post published a poor and exceedingly brief Associated Press article by Jennifer Loven on the Bush/Blair press conference, but otherwise nothing on DSM. The Miami Herald has published only a single, mediocre wire story on the press conference by Ron Hutcheson. When even many smaller newspapers have devoted considerable attention to DSM, it is surprising that these three relative giants have all but ignored the document.
For those who are new participants in this daily targeted media campaign, you can go to the first diary in the series for introductory materials and advice about how to write a letter to the media:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/1/74549/88811
Urge the Senate to re-open investigations into political manipulation of intelligence
In addition to this trio of media contacts, I'm urging people to contact Sen. Pat Roberts to urge him to restart the Sen. Intelligence Committee hearings into pre-war WMD intel. (For my reasons in widening this campaign today, see above.) Last year the Committee issued a report that focused exclusively on alleged failures in intelligence-gathering; Josh Marshall maintains that this report was part of a cover-up of the abuses that the Bush administration engaged in. At least as importantly, Roberts promised Democrats that after the 2004 election the Committee would investigate whether the intel was politically manipulated by the Bush admin to produce the desired reports about WMDs.
Yet those hearings have never been held. It was a false and tendentious distinction to make in the first place; postponing an investigation into alleged manipulation was intended to provide cover for Bush. The pressure that was brought to bear upon the `intelligence community' (a lovely phrase) from within, from above, and from the side (specifically through the Office of Special Plans, a shady set-up that stove-piped bad intel from lousy sources like `Curveball'), has been very widely and credibly reported. See for example this report (thanks to NeuroticBlonde for that link). For Sen. Roberts to have promised and reneged upon his commitment to hold hearings is outrageous to his colleagues and an insult to the nation. I urge you to contact him today to say so, and spread the word to your friends as well. It is even more appalling that Sen. Roberts has taken this action though he served as a Marine and was at one time a reporter. Here is the contact info:
Senator Pat Roberts R-KA, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee . email: pat_roberts@roberts.senate.gov webmail: http://roberts.senate.gov/e-mail_pat.html phone: (202) 224-4774 Fax: 202-224-3514 (Jackie Cottrell, Chief of Staff)
The `new' documents from the UK
I am late posting this diary, and have not been able to fully analyze these new docs yet. An analysis of each document will appear at this blog (and no doubt others as well): http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/blog.html
The texts are viewable at RawStory.com. I would advise you to read the PDF versions if possible. The (early ?) html transcriptions I saw there were slightly inaccurate in places and in any case by necessity less informative than the scans of the originals.
As I said, these docs are complex though potentially rewarding. They tend overall to confirm the picture we inferred from DSM, and they back up the Military Action memo (MAM) that appeared Sunday (which itself supports the picture presented by DSM--despite several rather transparent attempts to demonstrate the opposite, as noted in yesterday's very long Awaken the MSM diary).
Many of the best bits have been published or broadcast before, but there are several new gems (unpublished heretofore, it seems to me). For example, in the Ricketts memo of March 22, 2002: "US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Aaida [sic] is so far frankly unconvincing." A little bit later: "For Iraq, "regime change" does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam." Fuel to the fire; let's keep that fire stoked--but carefully. First, analyze the documents.
There is a somewhat troubling curiosity to the Iraq Options document, which I've asked an authority in the UK to comment on (will post when I hear from him). This is what I said about it yesterday on highacidity's diary (slightly modified for clarity):
The Iraq Options document appears to have been altered, to cut out one or several lines of text. This is a little worrying.
The last sentence on p. 7 of the Iraq Options document runs "The optimal times to start action are early spring ..." (and when? there is in fact nothing to continue the sentence on p. 8, though we have a plural subject and verb).
Page 7 ends as they all do, with the last line of text running only about half-way across the page, and a few lines below that there appears 'Secret UK eyes only'. Except that this page, uniquely, has "Eid festival" even a few lines farther down. The E in Eid is not aligned with the left margin above. Further, there is some sort of discoloration over Eid festival, which seems to match the slight discoloration over the text at the top of page 8. Even odder, the text at the top of page 8 has been clipped very close, as if to crop off something. Hand-written notes? or possibly some text that was once at the top of page 8, above the current top line? The text on page 8 is shorter by several lines than the texts on other pages.
My theory is that the discoloration on both pages is tape. That a line or two or three was cropped from the top of the now shortened page 8, and this was taped onto a blank sheet and photocopied. For some unknown reason, "Eid festival" was cut out from the text that had been excised and taped to the bottom of the previous page...perhaps to indicate obliquely what had once been stated in the now truncated paragraph.
So who is hiding what and why? It sure looks as if the US or UK had identified the Eid festival as some sort of parameter for the invasion, perhaps the ideal time (after Ramadan)?
I'll leave things there for the moment. Sorry to be so slow getting this published today. Complications have compounded complications, as they will. Hope to be back on track tomorrow morning at 8 AM.