Deep Throat is Back, This time its SaddamGate
Something we already know, but most would not acknowledge and few could prove. Much like the tapes that Rosemary Woods kept for Richard Nixon, this is the smoking gun.
Some brave soul has given London's Sunday Times the official minutes of a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then head of Britain's CIA equivalent, MI-6. Prime Minister Blair does not dispute the authenticity of the document.
It was 9am on July 23, 2002, eight months before the invasion began and long before the public was told war was inevitable.
Fresh back in London from consultations in Washington, Sir Richard Dearlove's intelligence report concerned his recent visit to Washington where he had held talks with George Tenet, director of the CIA.
Dearlove briefed Prime Minister Blair and his top national security officials on the Bush administration's plans to make war on Iraq.
“Military action was now seen as inevitable,” said Dearlove. “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.”
The Americans had been trying to link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks; but the British knew the evidence was flimsy or non-existent. Dearlove warned the meeting that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.
At this point, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw confirms that Bush has decided on war, but notes that stitching together justification would be a challenge, since "the case was thin." Time for another Morley.
Link to the Times Article
Link to the Memo
Some brave soul has given London's Sunday Times the official minutes of a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then head of Britain's CIA equivalent, MI-6. Prime Minister Blair does not dispute the authenticity of the document.
It was 9am on July 23, 2002, eight months before the invasion began and long before the public was told war was inevitable.
Fresh back in London from consultations in Washington, Sir Richard Dearlove's intelligence report concerned his recent visit to Washington where he had held talks with George Tenet, director of the CIA.
Dearlove briefed Prime Minister Blair and his top national security officials on the Bush administration's plans to make war on Iraq.
“Military action was now seen as inevitable,” said Dearlove. “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.”
The Americans had been trying to link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks; but the British knew the evidence was flimsy or non-existent. Dearlove warned the meeting that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.
At this point, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw confirms that Bush has decided on war, but notes that stitching together justification would be a challenge, since "the case was thin." Time for another Morley.
Link to the Times Article
Link to the Memo
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