U.K. Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’

Ragusa · Jun 12, 2005

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Drip by drip more info about that war of choice in Iraq comes out: Recent article in the The Sunday Times, titled Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’

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.

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

“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”.

The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday Times.

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.

“It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,” the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be “most unlikely” to obtain the legal justification they needed.

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.

The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it.

There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month’s publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to “the DSM” on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media.

The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking if it was true — as Dearlove told the July meeting — that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” in Washington.

The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that “the facts were not fixed in any shape or form at all”.
(...)
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The most remarkable aspect was that Blair was willing to suport the U.S., even though it was utterly clear to Blair and his staff that the U.S. leadership failed to do adequate post-war planning.

A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation of that country.

The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq.

In its introduction, the memo "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" notes that U.S. "military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that "little thought" has been given to, among other things, "the aftermath and how to shape it."
(...)
In a section titled "Benefits/Risks," the July 21 memo states, "Even with a legal base and a viable military plan, we would still need to ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks."

Saying that "we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective," the memo's authors point out, "A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise." The authors add, "As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."
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The U.S. troop levels insufficient? Ain't that 'wildly off the mark'?

Dranalis DeAealth · Jun 16, 2005

Yeah, but what I want to know is what Blair's reasoning for doing this was. We already know he used machiavellian - to say the least - tactics in the build-up to war, but his thinking can only really still be guessed at.

Sarevok• · Jun 17, 2005

I don't care, I didn't even bother reading that boring rubbish.

Dranalis DeAealth · Jun 17, 2005

I've overdosed on these kinds of things as well, tbh. As I said, we already know the general outline of what went on. It's no great revelation by this point.

[ June 17, 2005, 04:05: Message edited by: Dranalis DeAealth ]

TheMageTeclis · Jun 19, 2005

As other members have said, nothing to do with the government regarding the Iraq war now comes as a shock, labour's support stems simply from the fact that they will allways be better than the Tories.

Yirimyah · Jun 19, 2005

Yay, another interesting post from our good friend Sarevok• . You know, the rest of us don't comment when we haven't got anything to say, but not him! Oh, no.

The sad thing is that the media never considers all the information as a whole. Taken thus, it's beyond-reasonable-doubt that the Iraq war was nothing to do with WMD or Terrorisim, it was to do with one man wanting to finish his dad's job. Remember, Bush wanted Iraq invaded pre 9/11.

Chandos the Red · Jun 19, 2005

It's no great revelation by this point.
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The real revelation is that a lot of people could care less. When the average person stops caring about what happens in a democratic-republic, the end result could be tyranny. Democracy: use it, or loose it.

[ June 19, 2005, 17:22: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

Dranalis DeAealth · Jun 19, 2005

I care; I just don't see what I'm expected to say about this piece of information, other than that which has already been said. We know that Blair's handling of Iraq was abominable - but that statement is, by now, platitudinous. This merely adds extra evidence to an already well-proven point.

Chandos the Red · Jun 19, 2005

Sorry - I was not referring to anyone on this board. I was speaking generally. But more to your point, and again generally, it would be better if people were engaged on the issues, rather than the personalities, or the images of those in power. It's about substance and not useless or politically self-serving slogans.

TheMageTeclis · Jun 19, 2005

The real revelation is that a lot of people could care less. When the average person stops caring about what happens in a democratic-republic, the end result could be tyranny. Democracy: use it, or loose it
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The average person already has stopped caring about what happens in a democracy

Yirimyah · Jun 20, 2005

Thus, point proven.

Ragusa · Jun 22, 2005

Secrets Of The Allies
Leaks from London: A series of British memos reveals where Blair's advisers agreed with the Bush administration—and where they didn't—on Iraq.

By John Barry and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, June 27, 2005

On the question of Iraq, George W. Bush and Tony Blair have always projected an image of the perfect political marriage—two statesmen equally determined to see the struggle through to the end. Despite the painstaking public show of unity, however, the private wartime relationship between the United States and Britain has not been nearly so smooth.

A cache of secret British government memos, obtained by British journalist Michael Smith and recently spread around the Internet, depict the quiet diplomatic struggle between the two governments leading up to the war. In them, senior Blair aides expressed early concerns that Bush's blueprint for the Iraq invasion was hastily conceived, overly optimistic and legally shaky. British officials won't comment on the content of the memos. But they haven't disputed their authenticity, and some may be glad they leaked: for the most part, the memos show that the Brits were presciently worried about what could go wrong in the war and its aftermath.

One of the papers, the "Downing Street Memo," has caused the biggest stir. The memo is the minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and top advisers. In it, Richard Dearlove, head of the British foreign-intelligence service M.I.6, reported on a trip to Washington. "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... There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath..." Antiwar activists have seized on the memo as a smoking gun, saying it proves Bush cooked intel—and that he had already decided to attack Iraq at the same time he was insisting he would use force only as a last resort.

But taken together, the papers—seven in all—tell a more complicated story. Bush's team may have decided early on that Saddam had WMD stockpiles, but the Brits thought so, too. Blair and his advisers also seemed to agree that Saddam should be removed. Their concern was that the Americans were heading to war in the wrong way. Blair and his aides believed, though, that by going along with Bush from the start, Blair would be able to influence the way the war was planned and carried out. As early as March 22, 2002, a senior British diplomat advised Foreign Secretary Jack Straw: "By sharing Bush's broad objective the Prime Minister can... help Bush make good decisions by telling him things his own machine probably isn't." As the memos show, the adviser was largely mistaken.

Blair's aides believed it would be difficult to justify going to war based on Saddam's suspected stockpiles of WMD alone, or his supposed links to Al Qaeda. In a March 8 "options paper," Britain's Cabinet Office wrote that sanctions against Iraq had "effectively frozen" Saddam's nuclear program, and hindered his biological-weapons efforts. Saddam, it added, "has not succeeded in seriously threatening his neighbours." The paper maintained Iraq was continuing to develop WMD, but also noted that "our intelligence is poor" on that point. The brief's authors concluded "there is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD." What's more, they found that "there is no recent evidence of Iraq complicity with international terrorism." Given that, Blair's advisers wrote, "There is therefore no justification for action against Iraq based on action in self defence..."

But by summer 2002, some in Blair's inner circle had concluded Bush was beyond British influence. A July 21 paper recounts that, during a spring meeting with Bush at the president's Crawford ranch, Blair had told the president he would "support military action to bring about regime change, provided that certain conditions were met." Blair wanted Bush to make a serious effort to "construct a coalition" and "exhaust" the efforts of U.N. weapons inspectors. The Brits no longer believed Bush would meet those conditions, however: "... we face the real danger that the US will commit themselves to a course of action which we would find very difficult to support," the paper says.

Even so, Blair stuck close to Bush. The Brits held out hope that they would play a larger role in rebuilding Iraq. Instead, they found themselves marginalized, with top posts in Baghdad going to Bush loyalists instead of British hands with years of field experience. Some British officials privately believe they are still regarded as junior partners—nice to have around, as long as they keep their mouths shut.

Blair and his team have largely hidden any discontent they may feel. Yet, as the Iraqi insurgency intensifies, small cracks are beginning to appear. The unpopularity of the war in the U.K. has politically damaged Blair, whose Labour Party lost 95 seats in Parliament in the recent election. British military commanders have begun floating the possibility of shifting troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. That doesn't mean the prime minister is looking to cut and run. "Blair is a believer," says a senior British government official who, by Whitehall custom, spoke anonymously. "He caught on to Bush's freedom and democracy agenda right away, much more than any of his officials did. He knew what he was getting into." Getting out could prove more difficult.

With Rod Nordland and Stryker McGuire in London
from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8272787/site/newsweek/
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Bion · Jun 22, 2005

To tell you the truth, the thing I find most disturbing here isn't necessarily that the US had pre-9/11 plans against Iraq, or that they massaged the data to get other countries aboard the coalition; it's how little attention they seemed to pay to the aftermath. In my mind, that says alot about the competance of this administration.

Aldeth the Foppish Idiot · Jun 22, 2005

Well, the think-tank thought they'd be "throwing roses at our feet". With that kind of attitude - i.e., the seemingly impossibility of protracted insurgency - lead them to believe that they could take their sweet time in getting things setup. Of course, I have a hard time even conceiving that there wasn't a Plan B (known as a contingency scenario in military-speak) if the "roses at our feet" thinking didn't pan out as planned.

khaavern · Jun 22, 2005

Probably having a "Plan B" would have gotten you branded as defeatist. Remember that Gen. Shinseki said they'd need 200K troops, and where did that get him?

Ragusa · Jun 24, 2005

How again was that excellent article in The Atlantic Online? Blind Into Baghdad

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is a debacle not because the government did no planning but because a vast amount of expert planning was willfully ignored by the people in charge. The inside story of a historic failure
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'Historic failure' is truly putting it mild, 'incompetent, blundering armchair militarists' or simply 'morons' would be closer to what I think.

Just some of their bright ideas:

The war in Iraq would be a cakewalk of just three weeks.

Richard Perle: 70,000 would be sufficient.

Iraqi oil would pay for the invasion and America would not have to worry about the cost! Oops. So far, that is a $300 billion mistake.

US troops will be greeted with sweets and flowers.

And that's just the cream on the neocon sh*t sandwich.

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