07
Jun
Bush, Blair deny ‘Downing Street Memo’ claims
Today, Tony Blair came to visit George Bush at the White House. After their private meeting, they spoke briefly to the press. They each gave a short speech (Bush playing Sonny Liston—plodding, belligerent, aggrieved—to Blair’s Cassius Clay—happy, dancing, glittering), then each of them took two questions from the gathering of over 100 reporters in the gilded East Room. The first two questions were about aid to Africa. Then for his second question, Bush called on Steve Holland of Reuters. Steve said:
Thank you, sir. 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?
Bush immediately looked at Blair, who jumped right in to cover for his less agile partner:
Well, I can respond to that very easily. No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all. And let me remind you that that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations. Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me. And the fact is we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution, to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn’t do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action.But all the way through that period of time, we were trying to look for a way of managing to resolve this without conflict. 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.
Notice that he said “the facts were not being fixed,” thereby omitting any reference to fixed intelligence. By this time, Bush had collected his wits a bit, and took his turn:
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. [laughter] And somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There’s nothing farther from the truth.My conversation with the Prime Minister was, how could we do this peacefully, what could we do. And this meeting, evidently, that took place in London happened before we even went to the United Nations — or I went to the United Nations. And so it’s — look, both us of didn’t want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It’s the last option. The consequences of committing the military are — are very difficult. The hardest things I do as the President is to try to comfort families who’ve lost a loved one in combat. It’s the last option that the President must have — and it’s the last option I know my friend had, as well.
And so we worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully, take a — put a united front up to Saddam Hussein, and say, the world speaks, and he ignored the world. Remember, 1441 passed the Security Council unanimously. He made the decision. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.
So I guess Bush and Blair are in line for the Nobel Peace Prize, while Steve Holland is $1,000 richer.
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Choreographed disassembling.
June 7th, 2005 at 2:05 pmCatapulting the Propaganda
June 7th, 2005 at 3:22 pmThe President speaks talkingpointsese! My conversation with the Prime Minister was, how could we do this peacefully, what could we do. And this meeting, evidently, that took place in London happened before we even went to the United Nations–or
Whoa! What a load of horse manure!
June 7th, 2005 at 3:39 pmBut is this a surprise?
Did anyone expect either of them to tell the truth?
Could this be the contemporary equivalent of “I never had sex with that woman.”
June 7th, 2005 at 5:14 pmThat was not a good question. The critical element in the memo isn’t so much what was said — people have been saying that for more than two years now — but who said it. Eric’s question was much better because he included Straw and Dearlove in it. The question has to be asked in such a way that denying the charges means denying the people who made them.
June 7th, 2005 at 9:31 pm“I am not a crook! And he’s not a crook either!”
June 8th, 2005 at 12:37 amI’d like to ask a followup. The PNAC states regime changes as far back as 1997 to the clinton admin. Your secretary of defense is a member and signatory of this project for the new american century as it’s called. My question to you sir, why was the decision made to invade Iraq when the sanctions placed after the first gulf war seemed to be working, after all we are talking about a million or more starved children and economic ruin. Did you really believe saddam was a threat to the united states of america when he was barely able to hold his own country together and furthermore given the fact there were no WMD found, doesn’t this lend credence to the reports that were being made by Scott Ritter? alternatively, even if WMDs are still found, why do you think he didn’t use them on occupation armies? furthermore, and I’ll be brief mr. president, isn’t it true that you had also planned regime change in afghanistan since before 9/11?
Due to the increases in worlwide terrorism since you initiated the war on terrorism, and considering there has been no progress in bringing OBL to justice for his alledged crimes, don’t the people of the world deserve an honest and legitimate answer from the leader of the free world?
June 8th, 2005 at 5:08 amA couple of earlier leaked memos tend to run against the “we wanted a peaceful resolution” line. I’ve reproduced them, with some relevant links and a bit of analysis at
this DU thread
if you’re interested.
June 8th, 2005 at 5:28 amIf Watergate happened today, it would have just been a blip on the screen. This is outrageous. Are the American people so pampered and contented with their bread and circuses that they allow the brat king to do just do anything he wants? Tell any lie? Caligula and Nero would have been right at home in this political atmosphere. As long as we remain in this pattern, of the mainstream news media being just too plain gutless, or sold out, to tell the people the truth, ( and perhaps face Rather’s awful fate ) Incredible that you had to pay the reporters to do their jopbs!
To report on these endless Dubya-eruptions, and most importantly to stick with the stories, like Monica-Gate and “Day yadda yadda of the hostage crisis,” then this country is sunk as far as any sort of real democracy goes.
Thank God for blogs like this and others who are out there “crying in the wilderness.” Sooner or later, people will have to wake up and listen to these voices. The question is, how much damage will Bush/Cheney Co. inflict on us all before people do open their eyes and see the reality of what Bush has done to this country?
Keep on giving them hell Brad. And breaking the stories wide open, like the Clinton Curtis confessions. Keep on “rockin’ ‘em.”
June 8th, 2005 at 8:11 amUh, I meant Betty. Duh. Sorry, no coffee yet, and I jumped over here from the Brad Blog and was so POed that I clean forgot about it. My first time here, but you rock too Betty! Keep riding herd on them.
The question remains though. What do we have to do to get the American media to report the news? The fact that someone had to put a thousand dollar reward up, to shame them I would hope, into actually asking about the leaked memo during the ludicrous “Tony and George” show, is just too pathetic for words.
Again, keep giving them hell. Lord knows they deserve it.
June 8th, 2005 at 8:21 amThese men promote violence and hatred as well as the press who are not the ones to confront such men but simply all the peoples of the United States of America and the United Kingdom and stand up by implementing their individual freedom in reality by non-compliance with these authoritarian governments who speak about peace to humanity whom they regard as cattle for slaughter leading them to utter violence.
June 8th, 2005 at 10:16 pmFacial teen
Bush, Blair deny ̵…
October 1st, 2006 at 8:39 pm