Hypothetical question: If there was a smoking gun document made public, that was easily, rapidly, and absolutely proven authentic, that proved Bush repeatedly lied to the American people about nearly everything regarding the rationale for invading Iraq, would the corporate-controlled media report it?
The answer is no. And it's not a hypothetical question. Today, Thursday 5/5/05, is Day 5 of the UK smoking gun memo bombshell. And not a whisper of this in mainstream American media. Apparently, the runaway bride and Michael Jackson are more important.
The intro above and the text below are the letter I am sending to everyone I know.
Some news broke in the UK, Sunday 5/1/05. It was reported in the Sunday Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1592904,00.html
That a memo:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html
Was leaked about Tony Blair's and Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq. The memo details the minutes of a July 23, 2002 meeting chaired by Tony Blair with his cabinet present. Blair has since been interviewed, the memo was brought up, and Blair acknowledges the memo:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3ec1ddd2-bc76-11d9-b1e3-00000e2511c8.html
Blair downplays the memo contents, saying something like "people are taking the information out of context". I disagree with that, but it is an admission by Blair himself that the memo is accurate and not a forgery.
Among the notable things that Blair and his cabinet talked about 8 months before the invasion of Iraq:
The invasion of Iraq was already decided upon:
"Military action was now seen as inevitable"
Intelligence was being manipulated to justify the invasion:
"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
There was no planning for the occupation/aftermath at that time (and never was, judging by the results):
"There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
The timing of the war would ideally maximize political gain for the President:
"No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections."
Again, war with Iraq was a certainty:
"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided."
Even though Iraq was NOT a high priority threat to our national security:
"But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
And other aspects of the memo describe how they can try to create the conditions to make the invasion of Iraq legal/justifiable/moral, etc, like playing games with the weapons inspectors. As an alternative, the US was doing things to provoke Saddam into something that would justify a US retaliation.
I read about this on Monday 5/2/05 this week. That same day, Rep John Conyers wrote an open letter to the President called "Creating Reasons to go to War"
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/2/16258/65970
John Conyers Blog (it's very good, he updates about once a day) http://www.conyersblog.us/
The US news media? Complete silence. This should clearly illustrate to anyone who hasn't caught on yet that what most average Americans think of as the news is almost 100% bull shit. I can't speak much for newspapers, since I don't read them (but they are owned by the same corporations that make cable news), but definitely what is on cable TV "news" channels is not news. Not FOX, not MSNBC, not CNN, and sadly, not even National Public Radio anymore. Since I've figured out how to get the real news, every day that the cable channels have wall-to-wall coverage of Terri Schiavo, Michael Jackson, the runaway bride, Martha Stewart, the British wedding, Scott & Laci Peterson, etc, I realize how totally absurd the "news" is. Do you notice a pattern to the "news" items above? They are all about 1 or a couple high profile people of little importance in the real world, issues that don't "rock the boat". Ok, the new Pope was significant, but not significant enough that there should be a media blackout on everything non-Pope for 10 straight days. How did it get like this? The news used to be about service to the public for using the public's airwaves. News divisions used to regularly lose money, year after year, to do the news and to do investigative reporting. Now the news is about a 15% profit margin, and has become entertainment (at best).
In case you haven't been keeping score, this is the situation regarding WMD and Iraq: The official US report says that Saddam has had no WMD, probably nothing at all, since around 1992, and there is no evidence Saddam sent the weapons elsewhere, like Syria. How did the President, and his top people make such a strong case that Iraq was a threat? Simple. All of the specific things we were told about Iraq's WMD capabilities were lies. Sure, we all know Saddam was a bad guy and used WMD in the past. But the case that Saddam was currently developing WMD? The case made to the American public was mainly based on 1. Yellow cake uranium from Niger 2. Aluminum tubes 3. Mobile bio-weapons labs 4. Remote controlled drones that can drop WMD and 5. Fully reconstituted nuclear weapons.
- When the President said in his famous state of the union address "We have learned from British intelligence that..." what he didn't tell you is that he phrased it that way because US intelligence had ALREADY disproved/debunked that intelligence on the Niger uranium. The president knew, but the case for CURRENT Iraq WMD was so weak that that is what he had to use to sell Iraq to the American people.
- Condi Rice went on TV and said that Iraq has aluminum tubes that could only be for enriching uranium. However, in Condi's Senate confirmation hearing recently (to replace Powell as Sec. of State), Senator Barbara Boxer of CA brought up the fact that when Condi brought up aluminum tubes on TV, that 5 of 6 intelligence agencies that had reviewed the aluminum tube info had said clearly that the tubes could definitely NOT be used for enriching uranium, because they weren't the right type of tubes. The aluminum tubes were for missiles. Condi Rice knew this when she went on TV to hype the Iraq threat.
- When Powell presented to the UN the case for Iraq WMD and showed the cartoon of a mobile bio-weapons labs, it was just that, only a cartoon. The source of that information was an Iraqi defector, code named "Curve Ball" who was in German custody. The Germans told the US that Curve Ball was a severe drunk, totally insane, and not a reliable source.
- Remote controlled Iraqi drones (I believe) was a complete work of fiction, but I don't have the details. Haven't heard of any drones being found in Iraq though. Have you?
- Dick Cheney said on 3/16/03 on Press the Meat that "He's [Saddam's] had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." This is about as strong a statement as anyone can make, based on little or no supporting evidence, and is therefore a bold lie.
In fact, when the President was personally presented the BEST intelligence information on Iraq's WMD by John McLaughlin, the deputy Director of Central Intelligence on 12/21/2002, Bob Woodward reports that the President said
"Nice try, but it's not good enough to convince Joe Public. I've been told all this intelligence about having WMD, and this is the best we've got?"
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=3939
Here is a table of nearly everything the Bush Admin said prior to the invasion, and when & where it was said (I strongly urge people to review this, keeping in mind that we now know Iraq had no WMD for about a decade before we invaded)
http://lunaville.org/WMD/billmon.aspx
Last week Bush had a press conference where he said about the War on Terror "But we're making progress". No. The number of significant terror attacks is up 260% in just one year. There's been an annual terror report for 19 years now. Last year's (2003) report was an embarassment, because it had to be retracted immediately after it was released, because they vastly under-reported the number of terror attacks, and they got called on it. I think the revised report had about double the number of terror attacks originally reported. Because of that flap, they came up with good guidelines for how to do the terror report. In 2003, the revised report reported 175 terror attacks, the most in the history of the annual terror report. The results for the 2004 terror report? 625 significant terror attacks. Condi Rice has ordered the State Department to keep this year's report secret (for the first time ever), but it's too late for that:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11407689.htm
(Did you happen to see this on the news? Sure seems like important news to me).
If there's any subject that the President should be honest about, it's for what purpose we send our soldiers to fight and die. Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about an affair. Although Bush has not technically ever been "under oath", I don't think that matters when the President talks to Americans to build support for an optional invasion. 1600 US soldiers are dead, 11000 wounded, and 300 billion dollars spent (9 billion $ completely missing, so far, and no one is asking any serious questions...). A conservative estimate done about 6 months ago estimates that we've killed about 100,000 innocent Iraqis (due mainly to collateral damage from intense bombing by US war planes, again, something under-reported). The number of well-confirmed dead Iraqi civilians is now about 23,000 and increasing rapidly.
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
Everyone should call their Representative (202-225-3121), 2 Senators (202-224-3121) and the White House (202-456-1111) to urge that the President address the undeniable evidence (Blair memo, published in the Sunday Times and acknowledged by Blair himself) that the President lied about the War in Iraq. The President should resign immediately, or face Impeachment and life in prison.