Downing Street memo: Difference between revisions

The "Downing Street memo" (occasionally DSM), sometimes described by critics of the 2003 Iraq War as the "smoking gun memo", contains the minutes of a secret meeting, on July 23, 2002, among United Kingdom government, defence and intelligence figures, discussing the build-up to the war. The term is also used to generally describe a larger body of leaked documents running from March 2002 through July 2002.

The memo gets its name from London's Downing Street, where the official residence of Prime Minister Tony Blair is located (at 10 Downing Street). It is a metonym for the UK government in the same way that "White House" is a metonym for the United States government.

A typed replica of the memo was printed in The Sunday Times on May 1, 2005, and is available in full on Wikisource. There have been repeated requests for President George Bush to respond to allegations based on the document from the media and from a contingent of 122 United States Congressmen, led by John Conyers.

Outline

Copies of the minutes were sent to:

• Secretary of State for Defence Geoff Hoon,
• Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jack Straw,
• Attorney General of England and Wales Lord Goldsmith,
• Cabinet Secretary Sir Richard Wilson,
• Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee John Scarlett,
• Director of the Government Communications Headquarters Francis Richards,
• Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Michael Boyce,
• Head of the Secret Intelligence Service Richard Dearlove,
• Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell,
• Downing Street Director of Government Relations Sally Morgan, and
• Downing Street Director of Communications and Strategy Alastair Campbell.Template:Boxoutend

The minutes were meant to be kept confidential and are headed "This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents." It deals with the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War, and comes at a point at which it becomes clear to those attending, that U.S. President George W. Bush intended to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force.

The minutes run through the military options and then consider the political strategy in which an appeal for support from the international community and from domestic opinion would be most likely to be positively received. It suggests that an ultimatum for Saddam to allow back United Nations weapons inspectors be issued, and that this would help to make the use of force legal. Tony Blair is quoted as saying that the British public would support regime change in the right political context.

The most controversial paragraph is a report of a recent visit to Washington by head of the Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove (known in official terminology as 'C'):

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. 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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

The British analysis of U.S. policy is also stated elsewhere in the minutes:

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. 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.

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.

The main sections covering the ultimatum are:

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors ... If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

...John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Reaction

Proponents of an inquiry

In the United States, proponents of a formal congressional inquiry say that the minutes, along with testimonies from credible witnesses, shed sufficient doubt on the actions of the Bush Administration to warrant a formal inquiry. In particular, they say that the minutes indicate that the Administration was determined to go to war with Iraq prior to considerations of legality, and with full knowledge that, at best, "the case was slim." And furthermore that they selected and exaggerated intelligence so as to confirm their policy and developed a plan to manipulate public opinion. Also, proponents say that the contents (such as "Military action was now seen as inevitable.") and the date of the memo, July 23, 2002, contradicts the official White House position that Mr. Bush did not finally decide to carry out the invasion of March 2003 until after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the administration's case to the United Nations Security Council, in a speech on February 5, 2003. They also say that the minutes are dated at a time when Bush stated that "we haven't made any decisions on Iraq, but all options are on the table."

Another paragraph has been interpreted to show that Geoff Hoon believed timing of the war's start was intended to influence American elections:

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. 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.

It has been said that some of those present at the meeting believed that Iraq might possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) "capacity". However, the minutes explicitly state that the capability was less than that of Libya, Iran, and North Korea, and that Saddam was not threatening his neighbors.

US Congress

On May 5, Congressman John Conyers sent a letter to President Bush signed by 89 of his colleagues demanding an explanation of the revelations in the memo. No specific White House response to the letter has been made publicly. In response to the Bush Administration's refusal to answer the congressional delegation's questions, Conyers et. al have given serious consideration to sending a fact-finding mission to the UK. [1]

Conyers initially requested 100,000 signatures from citizens (a petition) to request that President Bush answer the questions in his letter. [2] The letter has been getting between 20,000 and 25,000 signatures a day, which was boosted by MoveOn.org joining the campaign on June 9. By June 13, 2005, the letter had received over 540,000 signatures from citizens, and more congressmen had signed on, bringing the total to 94. [3] As of June 16, 2005, over 100 congressmen had signed the letter, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Internet

James Wolcott may have been the first blogger in the US to take note of the Sunday Times publication, on April 30, 2005. By the next morning the document had become a major story at Daily Kos, where Congressman Conyers learned of it. Numerous web logs have picked up the story (see blogpulse for a histogram), and a website, www.downingstreetmemo.com, was created on May 11 to inform the public about the memo. The website also has a blog specifically dedicated to discussing issues surrounding the memo, called downingstreetmemo.blogspot.com. Created in late May, AfterDowningStreet.org is a coalition of more than 90 organizations who support an inquiry by the US into the issues surrounding the Downing Street memo and, US pre-war intelligence, and the planning and execution of the Iraq war.

On May 30, 2005, in a "blogswarm" ^{[4] [5] [6] [7] [8]} fueled by the memo, hundreds of blogs joined together to form the Big Brass Alliance. The Big Brass Alliance is a collective of progressive bloggers who support After Downing Street, in pursuing their goals.

On June 1, 2005 a targeted media campaign called 'Awaken the Mainstream Media' began jointly at Daily Kos and www.downingstreetmemo.com. Every day it lists new contact information for three news outlets, to urge them to provide better coverage of the issues. These lists are also linked to by a network of blogs.

US Congressman John Conyers has also set up a blog, currently focused primarily on raising support for a re-opening of the Congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks, ConyersBlog.us. Conyers' blog is keeping tabs on the number of signatures on a petition for the campaign to re-open hearings (see petition links below).

Pundits

On May 18, conservative pundit and former Reagan Administration advisor Paul Craig Roberts wrote an article calling for Bush's impeachment for lying to Congress about the case for war. [9]

On May 31, consumer advocate and former Presidential hopeful Ralph Nader wrote an article on ZNet calling for Bush and Cheney’s impeachment under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution [10]. Also on that day, he and Kevin Zeese authored an op-ed for the Boston Globe to support the call for impeachment against Bush, citing the memo as part of the evidence that the possibility of deliberate deception by the administration should be investigated. [11]

On June 26, drug war critic Donald Way wrote commentary on holocaustnow citing the relevance of those portions of the memos detailing how the air war began in 2002 for the purpose of provoking Saddam Hussein into reacting in such a way that could be used to justify the military invasion.

Citizens

A coalition of citizen groups will ask Congress to file a Resolution of Inquiry, the first necessary legal step to determine whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses. [12]. Article written by Larisa Alexandrovna, pushing the topic to the MSM. The formal Resolution of Inquiry request was written by Boston constitutional attorney John C. Bonifaz and is available here. The request states the constitutional grounds for impeachment:

[The U.S. President] has not given [the Senate] full information, but has concealed important intelligence which he ought to have communicated, and by that means induced them to enter into measures injurious to their country, and which they would not have consented to had the true state of things been disclosed to them.

Among the citizen groups are:

• Veterans for Peace
• Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
• 911Citizens Watch
• Democracy Rising
• Code Pink
• Global Exchange
• Democrats.com
• Democratic Underground
• Velvet Revolution, and
• Gold Star Families for Peace
• [13] [14] [15] Several links supporting the impeachment of George W. Bush

A website, afterdowningstreet.org, has been established for the newly emerging citizens' coalition.

Democrats.com has raised one thousand dollars, offered as a reward to anyone who can get George Bush to answer the following question:

In July 2002, did you and your administration "fix" the intelligence and facts about non-existent Iraqi WMD's and ties to terrorism -- which were disputed by U.S. intelligence officials -- to sell your decision to invade Iraq to Congress, the American People, and the world -- as quoted in the Downing Street Minutes?

In addition to the grand prize for eliciting a clear "Yes" or "No" answer, a number of lesser prizes are offered for lesser responses, down to $100 reward for video evidence of having posed the question clearly to President Bush within his hearing but getting no answer.[16]

A June 2005 Zogby poll shows that 42% of U.S. voters believe that Congress should impeach President Bush if it is found that Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq. A strong majority of Democrats, and around 25% of Republicans, agreed with the sentiment.

News coverage

The Downing Street Minutes was a major story in the British press during the last few days of the 2005 general election campaign and was also covered in other countries. The story had limited coverage in the USA but has recently received greater attention in the American press. The organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has been among those that have criticized the U.S. print media, saying they ". . .continue to downplay [the] story." [17]

According to Media Matters [18], there were some early mentions in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Sun, and the Washington Post, though coverage was slight (the Post's first article appeared in the "Style" section) and primarily aimed at the impact it would have on the British elections, rather than how it affected the Bush administration. The Knight-Ridder news service produced some reportage at the time, but independent articles were limited. The Los Angeles Times and Minneapolis Star Tribune put local reporters on the story, and produced early articles on May 12 and May 13, respectively.

At the Star Tribune, initial interest had been piqued after a reader e-mailed information he had seen on the Internet to the paper's ombudsman, who forwarded it to others in the news department. Being quite a distance from London, editors first waited for articles to come across on wire services. Undoubtedly, many other newspapers across the country reacted similarly. After a few days of no news, however, a local reporter was assigned. The article was initially scheduled to run on May 11, but was pushed back so that it could have greater prominence on a slower news day later in the week. [19]

Since that time, much of the coverage about the memo has discussed the lack of coverage. One of the first reports include that topic was a May 17 article in the Christian Science Monitor. The report was one of the most extensive for a nationwide publication up until that time. [20]

On May 20th, 2005, Daniel Okrent, the Public Editor at the time for The New York Times, publicly assessed the coverage of the minutes in the paper in a forum on the NYT's website. He also stated that, due to continuing reader interest, the paper intends to give fuller coverage to the memo. [21] Although Okrent stepped down at the end of May (the routine end of his term), on NewsHour on June 8 he suggested some possible explanations for why the US media had been so slow to cover what he considered a very important story. He said it may have been assigned to 'foreign news' correspondents and wasn't seen as a Bush story, or it may be the US media is still working on researching it (although he then admitted he had no reason to believe that). NewsHour transcript, audio and video

On June 8, 2005, USA Today printed an article by their senior assignment editor for foreign news, Jim Cox, saying with respect to the memo, "We could not obtain the memo or a copy of it from a reliable source. ... There was no explicit confirmation of its authenticity from (Blair's office). And it was disclosed four days before the British elections, raising concerns about the timing."

The Minneapolis Star Tribune revisited the Downing Street Minutes as part of the evidence in a Memorial Day editorial (May 30, 2005). It stated explicitly,

"President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse....

"It turns out that former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill were right. Both have been pilloried for writing that by summer 2002 Bush had already decided to invade."

The Associated Press first issued a story about the memos on June 7.

Veracity of the memo

Michael Smith, the journalist who first reported on the Downing Street Memo, has said that he protected the identity of his source by photocopying the original and returning the original document to the source. The document was retyped from the photocopy, and the photocopy destroyed. This has led some to question the document's authenticity, but no official source has questioned it, and it has been unofficially confirmed to various news organisations, including the Washington Post, NBC, The Sunday Times and the LA Times. Several other documents obtained by Smith, and treated similarly (see below), were confirmed as genuine by the UK Foreign Office.[22]

One of the first articles on the memo to appear in the U.S. media quoted "a former senior U.S. official", who, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the memo's account "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" during the senior British intelligence officer's visit to Washington.[23] UK Prime Minister Tony Blair denied that anything in the memo demonstrated misconduct and said that it added little to what was already known about how British policy on Iraq developed.

• Tony Blair, responding to a question on the document, said: "that memorandum was written before we went to the United Nations"[24], effectively confirming its authenticity.
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, when questioned about the document's accuracy, did not confirm or deny its accuracy.
• US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, when questioned about the document's accuracy, did not confirm or deny its accuracy.
• George W. Bush has not responded to questions from Congress regarding the memo's accuracy.
• The British Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
• A White House official said the administration wouldn't comment on leaked British documents.
• When asked about the contents of the memo by Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price in the House of Commons on June 29, 2005, Blair again refrained from disputing the document's authenticity, saying only "[....]that memo and other documents of the time were covered by the Butler review. In addition, that was before we went to the United Nations and secured the second resolution, 1441, which had unanimous support."[25]

US President George Bush

On June 7, 2005, at a joint George W. Bush-Tony Blair press briefing in the White House, Reuters correspondent Steve Holland asked, "On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?" President Bush did not address the issue of the intelligence and facts being "fixed" around a decision to go to war, but he did deny that he had, at the time of the memo, already decided to use military force against Saddam Hussein, saying "There's nothing farther from the truth." Bush also questioned the motives of whoever leaked the memo during the British election, saying "Well, I -- you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. ... I'm not sure who 'they dropped it out' is, but -- I'm not suggesting that you all dropped it out there."

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair

When the document was published, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair denied that anything in the memo demonstrated misconduct and said that it added little to what was already known about how British policy on Iraq developed.

Blair's response to Steve Holland at the joint news conference with Bush was "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all". He also reiterated that he and Bush had continued to try to find a way to avert war, "As it happened, we weren't able to do that because -- as I think was very clear -- there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked, or the way that he acted," again without explaining the apparent contradiction with the contents of the memo. He said the same thing in a June 7, 2005 interview with Gwen Ifill on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.[26]

White House spokesman Scott McClellan

On May 16, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said that the memo's statement that intelligence was "being fixed" to support a decision to invade Iraq was "flat out wrong". However, McClellan admitted that he has not read the memo, but has only received reports of what it contains. [27]

On May 17, McClellan told reporters that the White House saw "no need" to respond to the letter from Congress. [28]

On May 23, when BTC News reporter Eric Brewer asked him about his May 16th statement, McClellan retracted it saying:

"Let me correct you...let me correct you on the characterization of the quote you attributed to me. I’m referring to some of the allegations that were made referring to a report.

In terms of the intelligence, the - if anyone wants to know how the intelligence was used by the administration, all they have to do is go back and look at all the public comments over the course of the lead-up to the war in Iraq, and that’s all very public information. Everybody who was there could see how we used that intelligence." [29]

US Secretary of State Rice and UK Foreign Secretary Straw

On May 18th, 2005, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw were questioned on the memo, although neither was able to give a detailed answer. Straw stated that he had not expected the question to come up. The full transcript is available here.

Additional documents

Main article: UK Cabinet Office Documents

Previous to the appearance of the Downing Street Memo, six other British (Blair) Cabinet papers originating around March 2002 were obtained by Michael Smith and used in two Daily Telegraph stories[30] [31] published on September 18, 2004. The documents describe issues relating to the meetings held between Bush and Blair at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch in April 2002. They are:

(1) Iraq: Options Paper, prepared by the Overseas & Defence Secretariat in the Cabinet Office, dated March 8, 2002, describing options available for pursuing regime change in Iraq

(2) Iraq: Legal Background, prepared by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Legal Department, dated March 8, 2002

(3) a report from David Manning to Tony Blair on his meeting with Condoleezza Rice, dated March 14, 2002

(4) a report from Christopher Meyer to David Manning on his meeting with Paul Wolfowitz, dated 18 March 2002

(5) a memo from Peter Ricketts, Political Director, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, to the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, dated 22 March, 2002, with background and opinion for Straw's advice to Tony Blair ahead of his meeting with George Bush in April

(6) a memo from Jack Straw to Tony Blair, March 25, 2002 containing advice ahead of Blair's meeting with George Bush in April.

On receipt of the documents, in September 2004, acting on the advice of lawyers, Smith says he photocopied them and returned the originals to his source, then, after the Telegraph's legal desk secretary typed transcripts on an "old fashioned typewriter", the Telegraph destroyed their copies of the originals, in order to frustrate any future police investigation of the leaks. (As reported in Rawstory[32].)

The documents were widely quoted in the British press immediately following the Telegraph's story, for example in The Guardian[33] and The Sunday Herald[34]

On October 5th, 2004, a zipped file (leaks-brief.zip), containing facsimiles of these documents in PDF form, appeared on Cryptome[35], provided by Professor Michael Lewis of Cambridge University, who had also housed the file at Iraq expert Glen Rangwala's Middle East Reference website[36]. The file derives ultimately from the typed transcript of the documents made by Smith and the Telegraph.

Interest in these documents was revived around 8 June, 2005, following their appearance in a discussion thread at Democratic Underground[37] and subsequently they began to be quoted in US media, after Rawstory and NBC verified their authenticity with Smith and British government sources.

The Los Angeles Times published an article on June 15, 2005, describing several of the "new" documents; the article says that "Michael Smith, the defense writer for The Times of London who revealed the Downing Street minutes in a story May 1, provided a full text of the six new documents to the Los Angeles Times."[38]

The six documents are available in PDF form from the Think Progress web site.[39]

A further document, a July 21, 2002, cabinet office paper titled "Conditions for Military Action", which is a briefing paper for the meeting of which the Downing Street Memo is the minutes, was published (with the last page missing) by The Sunday Times on June 12, 2005.[40]

See also

• UK Cabinet Office Documents
• Office of Special Plans
• Operation Southern Focus Pre-invasion military operations
• Operation Rockingham Iraq intelligence gathering
• David Kelly Suicide of UK Iraq weapons expert who briefed journalists
• September Dossier UK government report on Iraq threat pre-war
• Dodgy Dossier Follow up to September Dossier
• Declaration of war by the United States
• Executive Order 13233 Restricting access to presidential records
• Executive Order 13303 Restricting legal claims
• Governments' pre-war positions on invasion of Iraq
• The UN Security Council and the Iraq war
• Legal opinion on war by UK attorney General

Wikisource links

• Wikisource:Downing Street Memo re Bush's Determination to Topple Saddam
• Wikisource:Letter from Congress regarding Downing Street memo

External links

References

• Guardian.co.uk - 'Iraq: full texts of speeches and key documents' (archived), The Guardian (retrieved May 31, 2005)
• House.gov (pdf) - Letter to George W. Bush, regarding Downing Street Memo, signed by approximately 90 US Congress members, John Conyers, et al (May 5, 2005)
• TimesOnline.co.uk - 'The secret Downing Street memo: Secret and Strictly Confidential - UK Eyes Only' (memo transcript) Sunday Times (May 1, 2005)
• Raw Story - 'DSM Coverage' (Documents. Timeline. Confirmation. Resolution of Inquiry). Raw Story (May - June 2005).

Petitions

• Democrats.com - 'Should Congress Investigate Bush's Iraq War Lies?'
• John Conyers.com - 'Letter to President Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"' (online petition; goal: 250,000 signatures), John Conyers

Mainstream media coverage

• CSMonitor.com - 'Why has "Downing Street memo" story been a "dud" in US? A mid-2002 British memo saying US was planning to "fix" intelligence to fit plans to invade Iraq has not been big news', Matthew Clark, Christian Science Monitor (May 17, 2005)
• NewsDay.com - 'Memo: Bush manipulated Iraq intel', Newsday (May 9, 2005)
• RealCities.com - 'Special Reports' (collection of articles on Iraq intelligence) Knight-Ridder
• Yahoo! News - An article on how the documents were collected.
• L.A. Times Michael Kinsey - 'The Left Gets a Memo'
• Reason - 'The Downing Street Downer: Be Careful What You Ask For in May, You May Get it in June.'

Downing Street memo sites, etc.

• AfterDowningStreet.org - After Downing Street (a coalition campaigning for the U.S. Congress to formally investigate whether President Bush committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war)
• Cryptome.org - 'Leaked Cabinet Office papers, September 2004: Evidence of false statements made by Tony Blair to Parliament and the media' (summary and links to 6 UK cabinet papers), Michael Lewis, (June, 2005)
• DowningStreetMemo.com - 'The Downing Street Memo: Seeking The truth since May 13, 2005' (informational website with texts and other resources to put the documents in context, plus news and commentary; it also supports congressional request for investigation)
• JohnConyers.com - 'The Downing Street Memo', John Conyers (May 27, 2005)
• TheFourReasons.org - 'The Four Reasons: why "We the People" must uphold the Constitution of The United States of America and hold those who violate it accountable' (impeachment resources, etc.)
• WhiteHouseMemos.com - 'Featured Memos of the Week'
• ReadtheMemo.net - 'Spread the word with DSM t-shirts'

Blogs

• BigBrassBlog.com - 'The Big Brass Alliance' (bloggers allied in support of AfterDowningStreet.org)
• ConyersBlog.us - 'John Conyers, Jr.: 40 Years of Jobs, Justice and Peace'
• DailyKos.com - List of DSM diaries at dKos, 4/30/05 to 5/29/05
• DailyKos.com - 'A Matter of Minutes -- Downing Street Dossier'
• LeftofCentrist.blogspot.com - Other documents that support the Downing Street Memo. (includes gif files of documents, June 12, 2005)
• FreeRepublic.com - Tod Lindberg opinion from The Weekly Standard tries to undercut DSM (June 20, 2005)
• PowerLine - An opinion arguing that DSM offers nothing of value.
• Salon.com - Joe Conason's response to those like Kinsley who claim DMS is 'old news' (June 17, 2005)