good editorial for the DSM's

So British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with aides on July 23, 2002, one of whom wrote a memo recording the gist of what was said.

It seems that Sir Richard Dearlove, an intelligence official, "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. 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."

Thus the most damning passage in the "Downing Street Memo." The memo is now touted as the smoking gun by those who believe the Iraq war is based on lies and deceit and not, primarily, erroneous intelligence. But read the passage again.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam . . ." Of course he did. It had been U.S. policy since 1990 to favor regime change in Iraq.

"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable." Actually, the idea the administration's attitude had shifted and military action was now seen as inevitable contradicts the theories of those who've claimed George Bush came into office determined to oust Saddam Hussein and only seized upon 9/11 as an excuse. No matter. The fact is we have no idea whose opinions Dearlove was relating, let alone whether he did so accurately.

By July 2002, in any case, the media were running many stories about U.S. preparations for a possible invasion of Iraq. Why is it a surprise that some officials, whether they wanted war or not, by then saw it as "inevitable"?

Ah, but the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Well, so says one man. But that's not what the 9/11 Commission and other probes have concluded. It's not what Bill Clinton's administration believed about Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs, or what the Germans or French thought, either.

The Downing Street Memo is an interesting document and more grist for historians. But it is no smoking gun.
read it at Rocky Mountain News Opinion
Well, so even if these turn out to be legit the left doesn't have a whole lot of credible evidence.