Bush–Blair 2003 Iraq memo
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The Bush–Blair 2003 Iraq memo or Manning memo is a secret memo of a two-hour meeting between American President
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that took place on 31 January 2003 at the White House. The memo purportedly shows at that point, the administrations of Bush and Blair had already decided that the invasion of Iraq would take place two months later. The memo was written by Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning, who participated in the meeting. The memo has become controversial for its content, which includes discussing ways to provoke Saddam Hussein into a confrontation, with Bush floating the idea of painting a U-2 spyplane in United Nations (UN) colors and letting it fly low over Iraq to provoke Iraq into shooting it down, thus providing a pretext for the subsequent invasion. It also shows Bush and Blair were making a secret deal to carry out the invasion regardless of whether weapons of mass destruction were discovered by UN weapons inspectors, in direct contradiction to statements made by Blair to British Parliament afterwards that Saddam would be given a final chance to disarm. According to the memo, Bush is paraphrased as saying: Bush also said to Blair that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups" in Iraq after the war. Five pages long, and classified as ''extremely sensitive'', the existence of the memo was first alleged by Philippe Sands in his book '' Lawless World'' (2005). It was then obtained by American newspaper '' The New York Times'', which confirmed its authenticity. UK Liberal Democrat party leader
Menzies Campbell Walter Menzies Campbell, Baron Campbell of Pittenweem, (; born 22 May 1941), often known as Ming Campbell, is a British Liberal Democrat politician, advocate and former athlete. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Fife from ...
said, with regard to the memo: "If these allegations are accurate, the Prime Minister and President Bush were determined to go to war with or without a second UN resolution, and Britain was signed up to do so by the end of January 2003."


See also

* Bush-Aznar memo *
Casus belli A (; ) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war. A ''casus belli'' involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a ' involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one b ...
*
Downing Street memo The Downing Street memo (or the Downing Street Minutes), sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the smoking gun memo, is the note of a 23 July 2002 secret meeting of senior British government, defence and intelligence figures discussin ...
*
Iraq document leak 18 September 2004 On 18 September 2004 the British ''Daily Telegraph'' ran two articles titledSecret papers show Blair was warned of Iraq chaos an'Failure is not an option, but it doesn't mean they will avoid it'by reporter Michael Smith, revealing the contents of ...
* September Dossier * Iraq Dossier *
Butler Review The Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, widely known as the Butler Review after its chairman Robin Butler, Baron Butler of Brockwell, was announced on 3 February 2004 by the British Government and published on 14 July 2004. It ...
*
Iraq Inquiry The Iraq Inquiry (also referred to as the Chilcot Inquiry after its chairman, Sir John Chilcot)Yellowcake forgery The Niger uranium forgeries were forged documents initially released in 2001 by SISMI (the former military intelligence agency of Italy), which seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Ni ...
* Plame affair *
Propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
* Dr. David Kelly *
Operation Rockingham Operation Rockingham was the codeword for UK involvement in inspections in Iraq following the war over Kuwait in 1990–91. Early in 1991 the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq ( UNSCOM) was established to oversee the destruction of Iraq' ...
* Hussein Kamel al-Majid and his Testimony for UNSCOM 8-22-1995. *
Iraqi aluminum tubes Aluminum tubes purchased by the nation of Iraq were intercepted in Jordan in 2001. In September 2002 they were publicly cited by the White House as evidence that Iraq was actively pursuing an atomic weapon. Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, man ...
* Project for the New American Century *
Wolfowitz Doctrine Paul Wolfowitz, sponsor of the doctrine. Wolfowitz Doctrine is an unofficial name given to the initial version of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–99 fiscal years (dated February 18, 1992) published by US Under Secretary of Defense fo ...
*
Bush Doctrine The Bush Doctrine refers to multiple interrelated foreign policy principles of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. These principles include unilateralism, preemptive war, and regime change. Charles Krauthammer first used ...
* Scott Ritter


References


External links


The White House meeting that took us to war
By Oliver King, Guardian Unlimited, February 2, 2006
Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo
by Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, February 3, 2006
Bush 'tried to lure Saddam into war using UN aircraft'
by Rosemary Bennett and Michael Evans, The Times, February 3, 2006
Fresh claims about the build-up to Iraq war
by
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
, February 3, 2006
Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says
by Don Van Natta Jr., ''New York Times'', March 27, 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:Bush-Blair 2003 Iraq Memo 2003 in the United Kingdom 2003 in the United States Causes and prelude of the Iraq War George W. Bush administration controversies Memoranda Political scandals in the United Kingdom Stances and opinions regarding the Iraq War Tony Blair United Kingdom–United States relations