In July 2002, lots of people saw the writing on the wall and assumed that W. had already decided to illegally invade and occupy Iraq using any justifications that could be bent to fit his goal, but W maintained that he had not yet made up his mind, and absent any proof to the contrary, he was given the benefit of the doubt by most Americans.
A secret British memo emerged last week and it seems to prove that W knowingly deceived the American public and the world, since by the summer of 2002 the invasion was essentially a done deal.
Juan Cole has the memo and some commentary.
“C [Dearlove] 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.”
It is not surprising on the face of it that Bush had decided on the Iraq war by summer of 2002. It it is notable that Dearlove noticed a change in views on the subject from earlier visits. By summer of 2002, the Afghanistan war had wound down and al-Qaeda was on the run, so Bush no longer felt vulnerable and was ready to go forward with his long-cherished project of an Iraq War. What is notable is that all this was not what Bush was telling us.
Bush was lying to the American people at the time and saying that no final decision had been made on the war.
Godfrey Sperling of the Christian Science Monitor could write on August 27, 2002, “Indeed, Bush has said he welcomes a ‘debate’ on Iraq from those in Congress and from the public. But he has made it clear that he will make his decision based on what his intelligence people are telling him.”
But Dearlove’s report makes it clear that Bush had already decided absolutely on a war already the previous month, and that he had managed to give British intelligence the firm impression that he intended to shape the intelligence to support such a war. So poor Sperling was lied to twice. Any “debate” was meaningless if the president had already decided. And he wasn’t waiting to make his decision in the light of the intelligence. He was going to tell the intelligence professionals to what conclusion they had to come. “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
So, this is rather incontrovertible proof that W lied his way into a quagmire that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, but, outside of the blogosphere, the story has been mostly ignored in this country.
Professor Cole has much more , including the full text of the memo.