Secret Iraq Memo Rasises Serious Questions

A group of 89 U.S. Congressmen have sent President Bush a letter demanding the President explain a secret memo about the lead-up to the Iraq war. The memo was printed in a May 1st Times of London story and details a high-level meeting between British and US officials in July of 2002.

According to the memo, the Bush administration had already decided to remove Saddam from power. The memo says:

"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 should be noted that “fixed” means “put in place” and not “invented,” but this is still a pretty disturbing revelation. Was the policy of overthrowing Saddam decided first and then facts found to justify the decision? At best, this is bad policy making. At worst, this memo reveals that the Bush administration may have hand-picked and even purposefully misinterpreted facts in their zeal to “prove” that there was a need to go to war.

Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for what is revealed in the memo. But, so far, the administration has had no comment. Is this a bombshell or just some overstatements by a British official that look much worse than they are? The Bush Administrations needs to provide an explanation. The mainstream media needs to push for one.

A Little Left of Centrist has been all over this story for days and we thank him for bringing the memo to our attention.