Not sure what page the LA Times is gonna run this on in Wednesday's paper. (not on their Web site yet either, that I can see. Will post a link once they update)
But it is ABOUT TIME
Los Angeles Times
LONDON -- In March 2002, the Bush administration had just begun to publicly raise the possibility of confronting Iraq. But behind the scenes, officials already were deeply engaged in seeking ways to justify an invasion, newly revealed British memos indicate.
Foreshadowing developments in the year before the war started, British officials suggested in the memos that U.N. diplomacy be used to force Saddam Hussein into a misstep and that confronting the Iraqi leader be cast as an effort to prevent him from using weapons of mass destruction or giving them to terrorists.
From LA Times (continued)
The documents help flesh out the background to the top-secret ``Downing Street Memo'' published in London last month, which said top British officials were told eight months before the war began that military action was ``seen as inevitable.'' President Bush and his main ally in the war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have long maintained that they had not made up their minds about going to war at that stage.
``Both us of didn't want to use our military,'' Bush said last week, responding to a question about the July 23, 2002, memo. ``Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option.''
Publication of the Downing Street Memo at the height of Britain's election campaign at first garnered little notice in U.S. media or other British newspapers. But in the weeks that followed, anger has grown among war critics, who contend that the document proves the Bush administration had already decided on military action, even while U.S. officials were saying war was a last resort.
The new documents indicate top British officials believed that by March 2002 Washington was already leaning heavily toward toppling Saddam by military force. Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, was described as enthusiastic about regime change.