Arthur Silber has a "Light of Reason"
column today in which he argues that we could be falling into a trap by harping on the suggestion that the intelligence was being "fixed":
When the Downing Street Memo appeared, many of those opposed to Bush's foreign policy pounced on it, and treated it in the manner of a confession. Bush and other members of his administration could not ask for more. As long as the case for Bush's deception relies primarily on the Downing Street Memo, he is home free.
I think it's unfortunate that the Reuters reporter chose to question Bush and Blair on the "fixed" part of the memo, but I think Silber is also making the same mistake. More below the fold.
Silber spends a lot of space quoting stories that were published before the war -- many of which have also been dug up here, including some by your humble diarist -- describing actions that were clearly intended to prepare for war. His argument that we should not be focusing on the DSM boils down to this:
Of course, the question of politicizing intelligence is a very important one--but keep in mind the major point: the intelligence was irrelevant in the final analysis, whatever it was. And [David] Corn realizes that the Memo is not conclusive about whether the intelligence was "fixed": "this discussion made me realize that perhaps those Bush critics waving the DSM around as gotcha evidence have placed too much emphasis on the `fixed' sentence"--and he is forced to conclude that "[t]here might be some wiggle room here for the Bushies." He's right--and since there is such "wiggle room," no one will be convinced by this argument.
I think Silber -- as well as Corn -- is focusing on the wrong part of the DSM. There are two other quotes that deserve much more attenion. First is this one:
[T]he case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
There seems to be a consensus now among international legal scholars that the UNSC resolutions did not provide a legal basis for invasion. We also know that Blair knew he needed this cover, that he persuaded Bush to go to the Security Council against Rumsfeld et al's advice, and that he (Blair) had forced his attorney general to rewrite a legal opinion that UNSC authorization was required. Finally, the memos shows that Blair (and Bush) were expecring that Saddam would refuse to let the inspectors back in if the UNSC demanded that he do so. When he did in fact allow them in after UNSC 1441, Bush (and Blair) got out of that bind by insisting (without evidence) that Saddam was not really cooperating. When the inspectors said that, oh yes he is, Bush told them to get out of Iraq -- another little tidbit he has conveniently failed to mention ever since.
The DSM thus provides further evidence that Blair was on notice all along that he was on shaky legal ground.
The other quote from the DSM is this: "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." And of course this has been discussed in much more detail in the latest memo to be released --which also expresses concerns about the legality of the war.
Congressman Conyer's petition does raise this question (item 3), but to my mind does it too delicately, and continues to focus more on the word "fixed." The WaPo front page story this morning does bring more attention to the lack of postwar planning (not mentioned in Conyer's letter, and I wish it were), but we need to harp on the legality question more than we have been.
Maybe Democracy.org can offer another reward (and did they end up paying the Reuters guy? I heard they were balking on that) to whomever asks Bush at his next press conference (if he has one) why, since he was on notice from the British that he needed legal cover to go to war, he did not provide such.