Jeepers Freepers, what excuse are you going to come up with to explain this?

By way of ShakeSis, it appears as though the holes in the official US & UK stories cannot be plugged and leaks abound!

21 July 2002, conditions were set forth for military intervention in Iraq. British Ministers were invited to, among other things:

Agree to the establishment of an ad hoc group of officials under Cabinet Office Chairmanship to consider the development of an information campaign to be agreed with the US

By way of introduction, the British Ministers were provided the following information:

1. The US Government's military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace. But, as yet, it lacks a political framework. In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it.

3.We need now to reinforce this message and to encourage the US Government to place its military planning within a political framework, partly to forestall the risk that military action is precipitated in an unplanned way by, for example, an incident in the No Fly Zones. This is particularly important for the UK because it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action. Otherwise we face the real danger that the US will commit themselves to a course of action which we would find very difficult to support.

Under "US Military Planning" it indicates that "no political decisions have been undertaken" but goes on to say that under a running start scenario, military action could start as soon as November 2002 and under a "generated start" buildup would occur with military action beginning in January 2003.

In December of 2002, the US officially set a late January 2003 deadline for a "decision" on action to be taken on Iraq. It was acknowledged that US views on International laws vary from the rest of the world and, that under certain conditions set forth, invasion would not be legal. Conditions under which invasion was legal were conceivable in principle, though they would be difficult to establish. A detailed legal analysis had already been prepared, more legal advice was necessary (ostensibly because the information available at Annex A did not support the legality of what was under consideration).

Justification building was critical:

12. This leaves the route under the UNSC resolutions on weapons inspectors. Kofi Annan has held three rounds of meetings with Iraq in an attempt to persuade them to admit the UN weapons inspectors. These have made no substantive progress; the Iraqis are deliberately obfuscating. Annan has downgraded the dialogue but more pointless talks are possible. We need to persuade the UN and the international community that this situation cannot be allowed to continue ad infinitum. We need to set a deadline, leading to an ultimatum. It would be preferable to obtain backing of a UNSCR for any ultimatum and early work would be necessary to explore with Kofi Annan and the Russians, in particular, the scope for achieving this.

13. In practice, facing pressure of military action, Saddam is likely to admit weapons inspectors as a means of forestalling it. But once admitted, he would not allow them to operate freely. UNMOVIC (the successor to UNSCOM) will take at least six months after entering Iraq to establish the monitoring and verification system under Resolution 1284 necessary to assess whether Iraq is meeting its obligations. Hence, even if UN inspectors gained access today, by January 2003 they would at best only just be completing setting up. It is possible that they will encounter Iraqi obstruction during this period, but this more likely when they are fully operational.

14. It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject (because he is unwilling to accept unfettered access) and which would not be regarded as unreasonable by the international community. However, failing that (or an Iraqi attack) we would be most unlikely to achieve a legal base for military action by January 2003.

In other words, the January 2003 deadline announced later that year was one under which they knew they were committed to war.

In disclosing their plans, administration officials offered the clearest timetable to date of how they would like to see the inspections process brought to a head. They are pointing to Jan. 27, when Blix is scheduled to make his first substantive report to the Security Council on Iraq's weapons declaration as well as the Baghdad government's cooperation with inspectors already on the ground and in making Iraqi scientists involved in banned weapons programs available for interviews with U.N. officials.

That date falls within the late January to early February window U.S. military planners have said is the optimum moment to launch an invasion of Iraq.

Administration officials said that waiting until late January, rather than pushing for the Security Council to declare Iraq is in material breach of the resolution based on the arms declaration alone, will suffice to demonstrate the United States' commitment to an international approach to ridding Iraq of its long-range missiles and chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

And how to deal with that pesky little problem of "domestic opinion"?

20. Time will be required to prepare public opinion in the UK that it is necessary to take military action against Saddam Hussein. There would also need to be a substantial effort to secure the support of Parliament. An information campaign will be needed which has to be closely related to an overseas information campaign designed to influence Saddam Hussein, the Islamic World and the wider international community. This will need to give full coverage to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, including his WMD, and the legal justification for action.

British Media, which has been covering the deceipt for some time, continues to uncover more information and print it. US media is starting to catch on to what those of us who are part of the BBA (which is up to 427 members now), Rep. John Conyers, 88 other members of Congress and over a quarter of a million people know, and it's not long before even more are shouting we're mad as Hell & we're not going to take it anymore!


Tags: Iraq War; Bush Administration; Foreign Policy; BBA; Downing Street Memorandum; Blair

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