Downing Street Memo is No Smoking Gun

This week, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) will reportedly present congress with the so-called Downing Street Memo. Foreign media are even reporting Kerry will seek President Bush’s impeachment, although the Senator has not actually indicated that this is his plan.

Since first appearing in The Times of London on May 1st, the British memo has gained more and more media attention. Detailing the meeting between high level British and American officials in July of 2002, the memo's most intriguing passage is:

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

Most Bush critics focus on the word “fixed," interpreting it to mean “to influence the outcome or actions of by improper or unlawful means.” But that is hardly the most common definition of the word fixed. It's important to note that the memo doesn’t say “fixed” but actually says “fixed around” which would indicate that the writer meant “to set in place.”

With that more likely interpretation, the memo doesn’t prove that facts were manipulated but that the Bush administration was still working out how the facts would be presented. Now, this still raises some interesting questions but not to the level Kerry and others seem to think.

The real importance of the memo is the insight it offers not into how policy is made but to how it is presented. The Bush administration was convinced that war was the proper action and obviously desired the support of the American people and foreign allies. They had to determine which of the multiple justifications they should emphasize. Looking back, weapons of mass destruction seemed to be the primary justification.

But were WMD really the primary justification or were they just the primary selling point? That’s the real question we should be asking. This is not about whether the Bush administration deceived us but whether they over-relied on marketing techniques to present the case for war. Marketing techniques are not conducive to good government and we need to work toward curtailing such practices. But they aren’t by any means criminal.

I think the way in which the Bush administration presented the war left a lot of confusion as to why the invasion was necessary (or wasn’t necessary). So we do need to go back and address how the Bush administration made their case and what should be done differently the next time war is considered. But there’s no evidence that facts were manipulated and the Downing Street memo doesn’t provide anything new.

Kerry would do well to avoid following in the path of Ralph Nader. Many on the left believe with all their heart and soul that Bush is a crook or worse. But they don’t have any solid evidence and so they take titillating but entirely inconclusive bits like the Downing Street memo and claim (or perhaps pray) that they are the smoking gun that proves some preconceived notion of Bush’s villainy. It’s not a winning strategy and only serves to further remove the left from the realities of mainstream America.

The memo should be discussed. But there is a big difference between reasonable analysis and reckless conspiracy theories.


Thanks to AubreyJ for the tip on Kerry’s memo intentions.