All that you have sent is very interesting indeed. The lag in the American media taking up the story of our leaked memo speaks very badly. Perhaps they might redeem themselves in the coming months because it looks as though it's a ticking time-bomb which they cannot continue to ignore.
Two things about the memo over here. Firstly, Blair has not mentioned it. Secondly, it must have been leaked at a very senior level in the civil service or by only one or two politicians. I cannot recall any leak so far in modern times of something which would only have been known at the highest level -- a dozen people at the most. Did Blair allow this to be leaked I wonder? Initially this sounds absurd, but it might have been done in the hope that it would damage Bush in America more than damage Blair in this country. After all, Blair is already considered to be Bush's poodle. In one sense the memo makes Blair's reputation no worse than it was before.
Besides the above, there are some very curious things going on here. There was only one major Cabinet reshuffle after the election. This was of Geoff Hoon, the Defence Minister (the fourth most powerful position in the government). He has been replaced and is now Leader of the House of Commons. This sounds a grand position and it has a degree of power because the Leader can arrange the timetable of the HofC on behalf of the government, but it is not a high status position. It is usually given to duffers on their way out. But Hoon is not a duffer. When being interviewed he is now a totally different position -- more relaxed than I've ever seen him. I'm certain he is relieved to get out of the Blair inner circle.
Then we have the leak of the trenchant views of the UK General Staff about the "trigger happy" performance of American troops in Iraq. Blair must have allowed this leak. The objective of this must be telling Bush that he can't count on British support for much longer.
It is interesting -- and significant also -- that during the last few months our Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has been vigorous in taking part in the European negotiations with Iran over nuclear power matters. This has been a slap in the face for Bush.
And then we have this altogether unusual business of Blair not attending the WWII 60th Anniversary when every other world leader of any note attended. Instead he sent his buffoon, Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister (who placed himself ostentatiously right on the back row in the final group photo, not at the front near Bush). This is exceptional. All through his time in office Blair has grabbed every opportunity to attend such big events. Bush came over here early in 2004 on a "State visit", staying in Buckingham Palace. It was a public relations disaster (relatives of dead British soldiers refusing to see him, etc) -- and more than probable that the Queen refused to have joint photos to be used by Bush during his election campaign. Then Bush had "breakfast" with Blair when he was over here for the European Conference six months ago. But, for the past couple of years there has been no extended discussion between Blair and Bush. Blair hasn't been to America. Of course, they might have been on the phone to each other every day of the week. I don't know. But they seem to have been quite distant during most of the occupation.
If Blair ever announces publicly that he is going to withdraw support for the American occupation of Iraq then this would have the most immense consequences in all sorts of ways. It could trigger the most damaging economic reprisals by America. Nevertheless, I think the worm has turned in his relationship with Bush and he has been telling Bush so in all sorts of less conspicuous ways. This must be quite a powerful factor in whether Bush stays in Iraq for much longer.
On reflection over the past few months, I think the most serious factor in the Iraq situation was the Helmsley report to the Pentagon last December, the brief summaries of which were somehow leaked -- that army reservists were refusing to be called up, that not enough young men are being recruited into the regular army. The occupation of Iraq in present numbers cannot be maintained by rotation for much longer. As already intimated by Bush, some troops will start to be withdrawn anyway from December onwards. But all this has now been joined by other powerful factors (e.g.declining British support, worsening economic situation in America, the impossibility of bringing peace about in Iraq while American troops are there).
So I return to my recent view that Bush will announce a substantial withdrawal quite soon. If some cosmetic placement of Sunnis into the government can be engineered then Bush can claim that there is now a "stable" and "representative" interim government in power. Even though he knows that a civil war between the Sunnis/Baathists and the Shias will almost certainly follow and that the Kurds will grab Kirkuk and some of the big potential oilfields of northern Iraq, this may in fact be the quickest and most realistic way that the Iraq problem will be settled and that the northern oilfields will be opened up.
Keith
At 16:44 15/05/2005 -0700, you wrote:
This is for those of you overseas who may have wondered how this story is or is not being covered in the US. Again, the UK report and memo, attached. - KwC
WP Ombudsman on lack of WP coverage of UK secret 2002 memo leak http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400705.html
Media Finally Begins to Notice British Intelligence Memo
Published on Saturday, May 14, 2005 by Media Matters
Nearly two weeks after the British Sunday Times disclosed a secret British intelligence memo that suggests that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to support its desire to wage war in Iraq -- and a week after Media Matters noted that the memo has been largely ignored by the U.S. media -- some news outlets are finally starting to take notice.
The Washington Post ran an article about the memo on page A18 of its May 13 edition, five days after Post ombudsman Michael Getler noted that readers had complained about the lack of coverage. Oddly, Getler didn't take a position on the paper's decision not to cover the memo to that point.
CNN.com ran a May 12 article that detailed the memo's contents and noted that 89 members of Congress have sent President Bush a letter about it. There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- in the CNN.com article that couldn't have been written nearly a week earlier. The Sunday Times ran its article on May 1; the members of Congress released their letter on May 6; Media Matters told readers about it the same day. But people who get their news from CNN.com didn't find out about it until May 11.
Still, CNN.com readers are better off than CNN viewers. Since last week, when we noted the network's failure to give the matter more than a passing mention, and wrote that "it's a dark day when CNN's 'witheringly bad' and 'excruciatingly empty' blog segment actually does a better job of covering the news than the rest of the network," CNN has mentioned the memo only twice more -- one of them coming in another "Inside the Blogs" segment on May 12:
ABBI TATTON (CNN political producer): We mentioned before a secret British memo that came out on May 1st in a London newspaper suggesting that the Bush administration was preparing for military action in Iraq in the summer of 2002. Now liberal bloggers have been picking up on this, saying why isn't there more coverage of this in the United States? One of them is Congressman John Conyers, a Democrat of Michigan, who is one of 89 congressman who sent a letter to George Bush asking for an explanation. He's been blogging about this at his blog, ConyersBlog.us, following the coverage, seeing how much it's getting there. What he said yesterday: "Are we nearing the tipping point on the smoking gun Downing Street memo?" We'll be seeing what more he has on that.
There's something seriously wrong with a cable "news" network that virtually ignores a secret intelligence memo that suggests the Bush administration deliberately manipulated intelligence in order to support its policies; virtually ignores a letter signed by 89 members of Congress demanding an explanation -- but covers the fact that one of those congressmen writes about it on his blog. CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who boasts nightly that he brings his viewers "hard news," hasn't covered the memo; at CNN, such news is left to "Inside the Blogs."
Well, not just "Inside the Blogs": as we said, CNN mentioned the memo twice in the last week. The other mention? The dozens of CNN viewers who were watching at 9 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, May 7, saw the following report by anchor Tony Harris:
Now, to a letter addressed to President Bush and signed by 90 Democrats in Congress. The lawmakers are asking Mr. Bush to respond to a London tabloid report. It claims the president coordinated military action in Iraq months before Congress actually authorized the action. The report cites confidential accounts of a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who reportedly committed his country to supporting a U.S.-led war.
The Democrats' letter to President Bush alleges in part, quoting now: "If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own administration."
Harris would have been hard-pressed to downplay the memo more than he did. There was no mention of the most explosive suggestion in the memo: that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to fit its agenda. Still, Harris's report was better than nothing, which is what most media outlets (we're looking at you, New York Times) have done with this story.
We'll give Conyers the last word for now:
On talk radio today, and on the Internet, there is a palpable frustration about the lack of mainstream media (or as many appropriately call it, "corporate media") coverage of the secret Downing Street memo. I share this frustration. In my view, it is inexcusable that the cable news networks and the major newspapers have failed thus far to give this story the attention it deserves. At its core, the disclosure represents a vindication of the assertions of all of us who opposed the war, and truth-telling former Administration officials who were smeared for daring to provide the public the information it is entitled to. More importantly, it shows an Administration that appears to have lied to the American people and their elected representatives, while simultaneously telling the truth to the representatives of the British people, about the most grave matter for any nation -- the decision to go to war.
Copyright � 2004-2005 Media Matters for America
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0514-08.htm
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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