# A Second "Downing Street Memo" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 12, 2005, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930 "2005-06-12T03:38:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/1 "2005-06-12T03:38:55Z")
Another British internal document has been leaked that demonstrates the pre-determination of the Bush administration to go to war. > **[The Times & The Sunday Times](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/)** > > News and opinion from The Times & The Sunday Times > [@](#): > > MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. > > **The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier**. > > The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal. […] > > The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult. […] > > The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003. I recall that some here wanted to hand-wave away the last one because it was just one guy, like some unrelated bit of flotsam on the vast sea of the integrity of the Bush Administration. Here again it is clear that Bush and company just had to gin up some support, to trump up some circumstances to justify a pre-determination for war. This is why nearly 1,700 Americans are dead. This is why we’ve taken a huge proportion of our resources away from the war on terror. It may be related to the fact that we have not yet caught Osama Bin Laden. It has left our military weakened and shamed. The sad part is that everyone already knows this. This won’t make the news because the people who would care already care. The rest won’t bother to even think about it. “Mere Bush-bashing from a Bush hater! BUSHLIEDBUSHLIEDBUSHLIED!! You believe the world would be a better place with Saddam, don’t you?!?” ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/2 "2005-06-12T04:02:29Z")
[Remarks by President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair in Joint Press Availability](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020406-3.html) Crawford High School, April 6, 2002 Iraq and ‘regime change’ comes up about 60% of the way down the page. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/3 "2005-06-12T04:03:04Z")
Don’t forget, you also hate America. I’d add a rolleyes but I sprained my optic nerves on the last memo and the ophthalmologist said no more reading political stuff with my eyes open. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/4 "2005-06-12T04:13:44Z")
The American, so called liberal, media is so timid/ineffective/complicit/dumb that today’s deep throats can only appear overseas. ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/5 "2005-06-12T05:42:29Z")
Honestly, this stuff doesn’t surprise me at all anymore. I’ve become so cynical about politics and the politics of war that none of this Machiavellian e even lifts an eyebrow. I’m not outraged that this kind of manipulation happens because it’s not new at all. I repeat: IT’S NOT NEW AT ALL. What irks me is that this system was (IMHO) designed to check the dirty dealings of the leadership with two other acting bodies. The press should be digging all this stuff up and putting it alongside all the stuff that the politicos do right. Let us, the swinish multitudes, decide for ourselves who represents us to the world and whether or not the folks who get to decide whom to blow up are wise enough to have that power. Alas. The press is cowed and three out of three branches of the government are controlled by one party. We’ve dug our own goddamn hole. As you reap, thus shall you sow. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/6 "2005-06-12T07:18:45Z")
It blows my mind that almost no one knows about this (I’m mainly talking about Downing Street 1 here) and the very few people who know don’t seem to care. Are the American media outlets deliberately ignoring this or are they just not printing it because they think people don’t care? Will a major news source pick this up on a slow news day and it will snowball from there, or has it already apexed on its slow fizzle into obscurity? ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/7 "2005-06-12T08:00:57Z")
No let me. Well Bush didn’t lie because … Well he just didn’t. Any anyway he won the election so that settles that. Nothing to see here. Move right along. ---
**Author:** ![Exploding\_Kitchen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Exploding\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exploding_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/8 "2005-06-12T08:42:45Z")
Well, WaPo is running a story on the front page of Sunday’s paper. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/11/AR2005061100723.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/11/AR2005061100723.html) So hopefully it makes headlines elsewhere too. And about freaking time. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/9 "2005-06-12T08:59:17Z")
At a risk of dragging this towards GD, I wonder, why there was no whistleblower. Plainly, we’re looking at a bare fraction of the evidence here. It was apparent and certain to thousands of insiders that the pre-War rhetoric was a conspiracy of deceit. How is it then, with this sort of smoking gun evidence available that not one got into the press? ---
**Author:** ![Exploding\_Kitchen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Exploding\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exploding_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/10 "2005-06-12T09:05:29Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > At a risk of dragging this towards GD, I wonder, why there was no whistleblower. Loyalty, perhaps. Alliance? Perhaps a true belief that there were WMD and this was the correct course of action? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. > [@Sevastopol](#): > > Plainly, we’re looking at a bare fraction of the evidence here. It was apparent and certain to thousands of insiders that the pre-War rhetoric was a conspiracy of deceit. How is it then, with this sort of smoking gun evidence available that not one got into the press? The first document was a leak during Britain’s election season…this one is apparently another leak as well. So either someone has their finger in the dike, or someone is turning on the faucet very, very slowly. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/11 "2005-06-12T13:57:08Z")
> [@Exploding Kitchen](#): > > So either someone has their finger in the dike, or someone is turning on the faucet very, very slowly. What the hell does Hillary Clinton have to do about this? ---
**Author:** ![Avenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de0a6/32.png) [@Avenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avenger)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/12 "2005-06-12T14:02:03Z")
> [@](#): > > “US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia,” the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality “would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation”. We could have used the option of telling them to fuck off. I assume that we still have some sovereign rights when US bases are on British territory. I assume this, but who knows whether it is actually true. Not really an issue when it comes to Bush’s arselicker in chief, who is currently addministering the UK on George’s behalf… ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/13 "2005-06-12T16:30:38Z")
[Four U.S. Soliders Killed in Iraq](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050612/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq). ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/14 "2005-06-12T16:38:52Z")
> [@vibrotronica](#): > > [Four U.S. Soliders Killed in Iraq](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050612/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq). Unfortunately, they won’t be recognized on the [Fox News website’s list of Fallen Heros of Operation Iraqi Freedom](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,144344,00.html) because it looks like they stopped updating the list about a month ago. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/15 "2005-06-12T18:52:03Z")
> [@](#): > > At a risk of dragging this towards GD, I wonder, why there was no whistleblower. What good would it have done? Even if we had certified video of GWB and Cheney on Election Night 2000 saying, “Woo-hoo! Let’s go kill us some brown people! Look the fuck out, Iraq!”, anyone pointing out that this might not be a wise move would have been dismissed as a liberal whiner. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/16 "2005-06-12T19:37:13Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > How is it then, with this sort of smoking gun evidence available that not one got into the press? Not sure about Great Britian, but here in the colonies it’s probably because the corporate-owned conservative media doesn’t want to listen. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/17 "2005-06-12T20:15:14Z")
> [@Hung Mung](#): > > Honestly, this stuff doesn’t surprise me at all anymore. Hell, even here at the left-skewing Internet headquarters of Ignorance Fighting, no one even bothered to start a thread about the oil guy in the White House who creatively edited the reports on global warming. (Or did someone do it, and I missed it?) ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/18 "2005-06-12T20:31:10Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > (Or did someone do it, and I missed it?) Nope. He’s resigned this week. It has _nothing_ to do with his creative editing. Turns out he built up four weeks leave, and wants to spend the summer with his kids. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/19 "2005-06-12T21:38:04Z")
Remember when our last President actually got impeached for, lying about a personal matter in a civil case? Or did I dream that? (Which makes me wonder – given the SCOTUS ruling about a sitting President having to respond to lawsuits, could there theoretically be a class-action wrongful death lawsuit against the current POTUS on the part of survivors of 1,700 dead military personnel?) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930/20 "2005-06-12T21:53:40Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Nope. He’s resigned this week. It has _nothing_ to do with his creative editing. Turns out he built up four weeks leave, and wants to spend the summer with his kids. Once again, we are witness to the extraordinary devotion to family exhibited by our elected officials and dignitaries. It is a heartwarming spectacle, and a sternly admonishing lesson to the Party of license, corruption, and moral turpentine. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-downing-street-memo/307930.md?page=2)