The Downing Street Memo

For over a month the left has been buzzing about the Downing Street Memo. This memo summarizes meetings between Tony Blair's cabinet and the Bush Administration made during the Spring of 2002. A couple of days ago John Kerry complained that the memo has not received enough investigation. A statement that al Jazeera misquoted as a call for impeachment.

The left has jumped on three points. First, that Bush and Blair had already decided to go to war with Saddam nearly a year before opening hostilities. Second, this statement:

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

And third, this statement from the same paragraph:

There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

As far as the first point, everyone knew by the Summer of 2002 that Bush and Blair wanted Saddam gone. This had been the official policy of the United States since the Clinton administration. This shows that Bush and Blair concluded that nothing short of a land war would dislodge Saddam. The problem was how to make the case.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the 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.

And they got their new UNSC authorization giving Saddam a new ultimatum with a deadline.

What about the WMDs? Did Bush know that they had already been destroyed? No, as shown in this quote:

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary

So the British were worried about Saddam using WMD on the battlefield! That would not be a worry if they knew that Saddam's supply was gone. Here is proof that Bush and Blair expected to find WMDs.

The third point, failure to plan for the post-invasion period may be a valid point but it is impossible to know from this memo how much planning was done between May 1, 2002 and the March, 2003 invasion.

Not much here to hang an impeachment on.