Downing Street memo
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The Downing Street memo (or the Downing Street Minutes), sometimes described by critics of the
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
as the smoking gun memo, is the note of a 23 July 2002 secret meeting of senior British government, defence and intelligence figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct reference to classified
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
policy of the time. The name refers to 10 Downing Street, the residence of the
British prime minister The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As moder ...
. The memo, written by Downing Street foreign policy aide Matthew Rycroft, recorded the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) as expressing the view following his recent visit to Washington that " eorge W.Bush wanted to remove
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
, through military action, justified by the conjunction of
terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It quoted Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
as saying it was clear that Bush had "made up his mind" to take military action but that "the case was thin." Straw also noted that Iraq retained "WMD capability" and that "Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN." The military asked about the consequences "if Saddam used WMD on day one," posing Kuwait or Israel as potential targets. Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith warned that justifying the invasion on legal grounds would be difficult. However, the meeting took place several months before the adoption of
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 is a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on 8 November 2002, offering Iraq under Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity to comply wi ...
, the resolution eventually used as the legal basis for the invasion of Iraq. UNR687 also provided a pre-existing basis, as it required Iraq to divest itself of "100%" of all WMD capacity, which the Memo agreed it had not. A copy of the memo was obtained by British journalist Michael Smith and published in ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' in May 2005, on the eve of British elections. Smith stated that the memo was equivalent to the
Pentagon Papers The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 ...
which exposed American intentions in the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
and alleged the American media did not report more about it due to a perceived bias towards support for the war. Though its authenticity has never been seriously challenged, the British and American governments have stated that the contents do not accurately reflect their official policy positions at the time.


Introduction

The memo was first published in ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' on 1 May 2005, during the last days of the
UK general election This is a list of United Kingdom general elections (elections for the UK House of Commons) since the first in 1802. The members of the 1801–1802 Parliament had been elected to the former Parliament of Great Britain and Parliament of Ireland ...
campaign. It went largely unremarked in the U.S. press at first, but was heavily covered in progressive
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s such as those on
Daily Kos Daily Kos ( ) is a group blog and internet forum focused on the U.S. Democratic Party and liberal American politics. The site includes glossaries and other content. It is sometimes considered an example of " netroots" activism. Daily Kos was ...
, because of a remark attributed to Richard Dearlove (then MI6 head) that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed y the U.S.around the policy" of removing
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
from power, which was interpreted to show that US intelligence on Iraq prior to the war was deliberately falsified, rather than simply mistaken. As this issue began to be covered by American media (''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' on 12 May 2005, ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' on 13 May 2005), two other main allegations stemming from the memo arose: that the UN weapons inspection process was manipulated to provide a legal pretext for the war, and that pre-war air strikes were deliberately ramped up in order to soften Iraqi infrastructure in preparation for war, prior to the October U.S. Senate vote permitting the invasion. Some elements of the U.S. media have portrayed the document as faked or fraudulent, and Dana Perino referred in her daily White House press briefing on 4 December 2008 to the fact that the Bush administration has "debunked" the document previously. The British have tacitly validated its authenticity (as when Tony Blair replied to a press conference question by saying "that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations.") A group of 131
members of Congress A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...
led by John Conyers, repeatedly requested that
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
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 ...
respond to the contents of the document. A resolution of inquiry was filed by Representative
Barbara Lee Barbara Jean Lee (née Tutt; born July 16, 1946) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for . Now in her 12th term, Lee has served since 1998, and is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 9th ...
, which would request that the President and the State Department turn over all relevant information with regard to US policy towards Iraq. The resolution had 70 co-sponsors.


Outline

Addressees of the memo
Copies of the minutes were sent to: *
Secretary of State for Defence The secretary of state for defence, also referred to as the defence secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the business of the Ministry of Defence. The incumbent is a membe ...
Geoff Hoon Geoffrey William Hoon (born 6 December 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire from 1992 to 2010. He is a former Defence Secretary, Transport Secretary, Leader of ...
, *
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...
Jack Straw John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
, * Attorney General of England and Wales Lord Goldsmith, * Cabinet Secretary Sir Richard Wilson, *Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee
John Scarlett Sir John McLeod Scarlett (born 18 August 1948) is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Commit ...
, *Director of the
Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...
Francis Richards, * Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Michael Boyce, *Head of the Secret Intelligence Service Richard Dearlove, *Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell, *Downing Street Director of Government Relations Sally Morgan, and *Downing Street Director of Communications and Strategy
Alastair Campbell Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist known for his roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director ...
.
The minutes were meant to be kept confidential and were headed "This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents." It deals with the lead-up to the 2003
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
, and comes at a point at which it becomes clear to those attending, that US President George W. Bush intended to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force. The minutes run through the military options and then consider the political strategy in which an appeal for support from the international community and from domestic opinion would be most likely to be positively received. It suggests that an
ultimatum An ultimatum (; ) is a demand whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance (open loop). An ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series ...
for Saddam to allow back
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
weapons inspectors be issued, and that this would help to make the use of force legal. Tony Blair is quoted as saying that the British public would support
regime change Regime change is the partly forcible or coercive replacement of one government regime with another. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's most critical leadership system, administrative apparatus, or bureaucracy. Regime change may ...
in the right political context. The most controversial paragraph is a report of a recent visit to Washington by head of the Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove (known in official terminology as 'C'): The British analysis of US policy is also stated elsewhere in the minutes: The main sections covering the ultimatum are: The minutes also outlines potential risks of an invasion of Iraq:


Reaction


Proponents of an inquiry

In the United States, proponents of a formal congressional inquiry say that the minutes, along with testimonies from credible witnesses, shed sufficient doubt on the actions of the Bush Administration to warrant a formal inquiry. In particular, they say that the minutes indicate that the Administration was determined to go to war with Iraq prior to considerations of legality, and with full knowledge that, at best, "the case was slim." And furthermore that they selected and exaggerated intelligence so as to confirm their policy and developed a plan to manipulate public opinion. Also, proponents say that the contents (such as "Military action was now seen as inevitable.") and the ''date'' of the memo, 23 July 2002, contradicts the official White House position that President Bush did not finally decide to carry out the invasion of March 2003 until after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the administration's case to the
United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
, in a speech on 5 February 2003. They also say that the minutes are dated at a time when Bush stated that "we haven't made any decisions on Iraq, but all options are on the table." Another paragraph has been taken to show that
Geoff Hoon Geoffrey William Hoon (born 6 December 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire from 1992 to 2010. He is a former Defence Secretary, Transport Secretary, Leader of ...
believed the timing of the war was intended to influence American elections: It has been said that some of those present at the meeting believed that Iraq might possess
weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...
(WMD) "capacity". However, the minutes explicitly state that the capability was less than that of Libya, Iran, and North Korea, and that Saddam was not threatening his neighbours.


U.S. Congress

On 5 May 2005, Democratic Congressman John Conyers sent a letter to President Bush signed by 89 of his colleagues demanding an explanation of the "troubling revelations" in the memo. No specific White House response to the letter was ever made publicly. In response to the Bush Administration's refusal to answer the congressional delegation's questions, Conyers et al. considered sending a fact-finding mission to the UK. Conyers initially requested 100,000 signatures from citizens (a petition) to request that President Bush answer the questions in his letter. The letter began accumulating between 20,000 and 25,000 signatures a day, boosted by progressive political action group
MoveOn.org MoveOn (formerly known as MoveOn.org) is a progressive public policy advocacy group and political action committee. Formed in 1998 around one of the first massively viral email petitions, MoveOn has since grown into one of the largest grassroot ...
, which joined the campaign on 9 June. By 13 June 2005, the letter had received over 540,000 signatures from citizens, and more congressmen had signed on, bringing the total to 94 – three days later, over 100 congressmen had signed the letter, including then- Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. On 16 June 2005, Conyers presided over an
unofficial hearing Unofficial hearing in the context of U.S. Congress is a hearing conducted by either single congressional representatives of the United States or other state or local legislative bodies in order to hear the testimony of the people. It is unofficial ...
or forum on the Downing Street memo in a basement room in the Capitol where notable opponents of the Iraq War
Joseph C. Wilson Joseph Charles Wilson IV (November 6, 1949 – September 27, 2019) was an American diplomat who was best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium; his ''New Y ...
, Ray McGovern and Cindy Sheehan, among others, testified.


Internet

Smintheus a
Daily Kos
and MYDD first addressed the memo on the night of 30 April 2005. By the next morning the document was elevated to a major story on the Daily Kos, where Democratic Congressman John Conyers learned of its existence. A website, www.downingstreetmemo.com, was created on 13 May, "to fill a void left by the American mainstream media," and continues with its primary aim "to provide a resource for anyone who wants to understand the meaning and context of these documents as they relate to the Bush administration's case for war." On 30 May 2005, in a "blogswarm" fueled by the memo, hundreds of blogs joined together to form the Big Brass Alliance in support of After Downing Street. On 1 June 2005 a targeted media campaign called 'Awaken the Mainstream Media' began jointly at Daily Kos and downingstreetmemo.com. Every day it listed new contact information for three news outlets, so that readers could contact them to urge them to provide better coverage of the issues around the Downing Street memo and other released documents.


Pundits

On 18 May, conservative pundit and former
Reagan Administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
advisor
Paul Craig Roberts Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939) is an American economist and author. He formerly held a sub-cabinet office in the United States federal government as well as teaching positions at several U.S. universities. He is a promoter of supply-side ...
wrote an article calling for Bush's impeachment for lying to Congress about the case for war. On 31 May, liberal consumer advocate and former presidential hopeful
Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the U ...
wrote an article on
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calling for Bush and Cheney's impeachment under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution. Also on that day, he and Kevin Zeese authored an op-ed for ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' to support the call for impeachment against Bush, citing the memo as part of the evidence that the possibility of deliberate deception by the administration should be investigated. On 30 January 2006, an article entitled ''The Impeachment of George W. Bush'', written by
Elizabeth Holtzman Elizabeth Holtzman (born August 11, 1941) is an American attorney and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from New York's 16th congressional district as a member of the Democratic Party from 1973 to 1981. She the ...
(Rep. NY-D 1973–1981, member of the House Judiciary Committee that held impeachment hearings of President
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
) was published by the left-wing periodical ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
''. The article makes specific references to the Downing Street memo.


Political groups

A coalition of American groups known as After Downing Street, co-founded by a group of longtime progressive and/or Democratic Party activists, called on Congress to file a Resolution of Inquiry, the first necessary legal step to determine whether President Bush had committed impeachable offences. The formal Resolution of Inquiry request was written by
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
constitutional attorney John C. Bonifaz. The request states the constitutional grounds for impeachment: Democrats.com raised one thousand dollars, offered as a reward to anyone who could get George Bush to answer the following question "Yes" or "No: In addition a number of lesser prizes were offered for lesser responses, down to a $100 for posing the question clearly to Bush.


News coverage

The Downing Street Minutes was a major story in the British press during the last few days of the 2005 general election campaign and was also covered in other countries. The story initially had limited coverage in the US but later recently received greater attention in the American press. The organisation
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) is a progressive left-leaning media critique organization based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1986 by Jeff Cohen and Martin A. Lee. FAIR monitors American news media for bias, inaccu ...
has been among those that have criticised the US print media, saying they "continue to downplay hestory." According to
Media Matters for America Media Matters for America (MMfA) is a politically left-leaning 501(c)(3), nonprofit organization and media watchdog group. MMfA was founded in 2004 by journalist and political activist David Brock as a counterweight to the conservative Media ...
, there were some early mentions in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', the ''
San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...
'', the ''
New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...
'', and ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', though coverage was slight (the ''Post'''s first article appeared in the "Style" section) and primarily aimed at the impact it would have on the British elections, rather than how it affected the Bush administration. The
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news service produced some reportage at the time, but independent articles were limited. The ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' and '' Star Tribune'' put local reporters on the story, and produced early articles on 12 May and 13 May, respectively. At the ''Star Tribune'', initial interest had been piqued after a reader e-mailed information he had seen on the Internet to the paper's ombudsman, who forwarded it to others in the news department. Being quite a distance from London, editors first waited for articles to come across on wire services. Undoubtedly, many other newspapers across the country reacted similarly. After a few days of no news, however, a local reporter was assigned. The article was initially scheduled to run on 11 May, but was pushed back so that it could have greater prominence on a slower news day later in the week. Since that time, much of the coverage about the memo has discussed the lack of coverage. One of the first reports include that topic was a 17 May article in ''
The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
''. The report was one of the most extensive for a nationwide publication up until that time. On 20 May 2005,
Daniel Okrent Daniel Okrent (born April 2, 1948) is an American writer and editor. He is best known for having served as the first public editor of ''The New York Times'' newspaper, inventing Rotisserie League Baseball, and for writing several books (such as ...
, the Public Editor at the time for ''The New York Times'', publicly assessed the coverage of the minutes in the paper in a forum on the NYT's website. He also stated that, due to continuing reader interest, the paper intends to give fuller coverage to the memo. Although Okrent stepped down at the end of May (the routine end of his term), on ''NewsHour'' on 8 June he suggested some possible reasons that the US media had been so slow to cover what he considered a very important story. He said it may have been assigned to 'foreign news' correspondents and wasn't seen as a Bush story, or it may be the US media was still working on researching it (although he then admitted he had no reason to believe that). Also on 8 June, ''
USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
'' printed an article by their senior assignment editor for foreign news, Jim Cox, saying with respect to the memo, "We could not obtain the memo or a copy of it from a reliable source. ... There was no explicit confirmation of its authenticity from (Blair's office). And it was disclosed four days before the British elections, raising concerns about the timing." The ''Star Tribune'' revisited the Downing Street Minutes as part of the evidence in a
Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...
editorial. It stated explicitly, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reported on the memos on 27 March 2006.
MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and politi ...
reported on the memos on 28 March 2006. MSNBC has an article and a video clip from '' NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams''. The Colombian newspaper ''El Tiempo'' implicated the Prime Minister's role in the
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
on 9 May 2007 – and the Downing Street memo specifically – as "the principal reason for the UK's disillusionment with Tony Blair." The Chilean newspaper ''
La Segunda ''La Segunda'' ( es, The second one) is a Chilean afternoon daily newspaper, owned by El Mercurio SAP. Their tendency is conservative, is the first Chilean newspaper to disclose information that occurred in the morning because it is evening. Its ...
'' on 11 May 2007 called the Downing Street memo "one of the best-kept secrets in Tony Blair's ten years as prime minister." One of the first articles on the memo to appear in the US media quoted "a former senior US official", who, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the memo's account "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" during the senior British intelligence officer's visit to Washington. UK
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
denied that anything in the memo demonstrated misconduct and said that it added little to what was already known about how British policy on Iraq developed, also commenting that "that memorandum was written before we went to the United Nations". *White House spokesman
Scott McClellan Scott McClellan (born February 14, 1968) is the former White House Press Secretary (2003–06) for President George W. Bush, he was the 24th person to hold this post. He was also the author of a controversial No. 1 ''New York Times'' bestseller ...
, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
did not confirm or deny the accuracy of the memo when questioned about it. *George W. Bush has not responded to questions from Congress regarding the memo's accuracy. *When asked about the contents of the memo by
Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom. Plaid wa ...
MP Adam Price in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
on 29 June 2005, Blair again refrained from disputing the document's authenticity, saying only " ..hat memo and other documents of the time were covered by the Butler review. In addition, that was before we went to the United Nations and secured the second resolution,
1441 Events January–December * February – The Republic of Venice annexes the seigniory of Ravenna, ending the Da Polenta family, da Polenta Dynasty. * February 12 – King's College, Cambridge, is founded by King Henry VI of England. * M ...
, which had unanimous support." *According to CNN, currently classified documents which were dated at the same month as the Downing Street memo, March 2002, were uncovered in Iraq, and contained evidence that Russian intelligence notified Iraq about the "determination of the United States and Britain to launch military action."


US President George W. Bush

On 7 June 2005, at a joint George W. Bush-Tony Blair press briefing in the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
,
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correspondent Steve Holland asked, "On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?" President Bush did not address the issue of the intelligence and facts being "fixed" around a decision to go to war, but he did deny that he had, at the time of the memo, already decided to use military force against Saddam Hussein, saying "There's nothing farther from the truth." Bush also questioned the motives of whoever leaked the memo during the British election, saying "Well, I—you know, I read kind of the characterisations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. ... I'm not sure who 'they dropped it out' is, but—I'm not suggesting that you all dropped it out there."


UK Prime Minister Tony Blair

When the document was published, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair denied that anything in the memo demonstrated misconduct and said that it added little to what was already known about how British policy on Iraq developed. Blair's response to Steve Holland at the joint news conference with Bush was "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all". He also reiterated that he and Bush had continued to try to find a way to avert war, "As it happened, we weren't able to do that because – as I think was very clear – there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked, or the way that he acted,". He said the same thing in a 7 June 2005 interview with
Gwen Ifill Gwendolyn L. Ifill ( ; September 29, 1955 – November 14, 2016) was an American journalist, television newscaster, and author. In 1999, she became the first African-American woman to host a nationally televised U.S. public affairs program ...
on ''
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''.


White House spokesman Scott McClellan

On 16 May, presidential spokesman
Scott McClellan Scott McClellan (born February 14, 1968) is the former White House Press Secretary (2003–06) for President George W. Bush, he was the 24th person to hold this post. He was also the author of a controversial No. 1 ''New York Times'' bestseller ...
said that the memo's statement that intelligence was "being fixed" to support a decision to invade Iraq was "flat out wrong". However, McClellan admitted that he has not read the memo, but has only received reports of what it contains. On 17 May, McClellan told reporters that the White House saw "no need" to respond to the letter from Congress. On 23 May, when BTC News reporter Eric Brewer asked him about his 16 May statement, McClellan said: The following day, a popular political blog,
ThinkProgress ''ThinkProgress'' was an American progressive news website that was active from 2005 to 2019. It was a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP Action), a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. Found ...
, posted a response titled
Take the McClellan Challenge
, comparing what the intelligence was with how it was used by the administration.


US Secretary of State Rice and UK Foreign Secretary Straw

On 1 May 2005, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw were questioned on the memo, although neither was able to give a detailed answer. Straw stated that he had not expected the question to come up.


Veracity of the memo

Following the advice of company lawyers, Michael Smith, the journalist who first reported on the Downing Street Memo, has said that he protected the identity of his source by reproducing all documents and returning the 'originals' back to the source. In some cases, a document was retyped from a photocopy, and the photocopy destroyed. This has led some to question the document's authenticity, but no official source has questioned it, and it has been unofficially confirmed to various news organisations, including ''The Washington Post'', NBC, ''The Sunday Times'', and the ''Los Angeles Times''. Several other documents obtained by Smith, and treated similarly (see below), were confirmed as genuine by the UK Foreign Office.


Additional documents

Previous to the appearance of the Downing Street Memo, six other British (Blair) Cabinet papers originating around March 2002 were obtained by Michael Smith and used in two '' Daily Telegraph'' stories published on 18 September 2004. The documents describe issues relating to the meetings held between Bush and Blair at Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch in April 2002. They are: #Iraq: Options Paper, prepared by the Overseas & Defence Secretariat in the Cabinet Office, dated 8 March 2002, describing options available for pursuing regime change in Iraq # Iraq: Legal Background, prepared by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Legal Department, dated 8 March 2002 # a report from
David Manning Sir David Geoffrey Manning, (born 5 December 1949) is a former British diplomat, who was the British Ambassador to the United States from 2003 to 2007. He authored the so-called " Manning Memo", that summarized the details of a meeting between ...
to Tony Blair on his meeting with Condoleezza Rice, dated 14 March 2002 # a report from
Christopher Meyer Sir Christopher John Rome Meyer (22 February 1944 – 27 July 2022) was a British diplomat who served as the Ambassador to the United States (1997–2003), Ambassador to Germany (1997), and the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission (20 ...
to
David Manning Sir David Geoffrey Manning, (born 5 December 1949) is a former British diplomat, who was the British Ambassador to the United States from 2003 to 2007. He authored the so-called " Manning Memo", that summarized the details of a meeting between ...
on his meeting with
Paul Wolfowitz Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is an American political scientist and diplomat who served as the 10th President of the World Bank, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, and former dean of Johns Hopkins ...
, dated 18 March 2002 # a memo from
Peter Ricketts Peter Forbes Ricketts, Baron Ricketts, (born 30 September 1952) is a retired British senior diplomat and a life peer. He has sat as a crossbencher in the House of Lords since 2016. Ricketts served as chair of the Joint Intelligence Committe ...
, Political Director, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, to the Foreign Secretary,
Jack Straw John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
, dated 22 March 2002, with background and opinion for Straw's advice to Tony Blair ahead of his meeting with George Bush in April # a memo from Jack Straw to Tony Blair, 25 March 2002 containing advice ahead of Blair's meeting with George Bush in April. On receipt of the documents, in September 2004, acting on the advice of lawyers, Smith says he photocopied them and returned the originals to his source, then, after the ''Telegraph'''s legal desk secretary typed transcripts on an "old fashioned typewriter", the ''Telegraph'' destroyed their copies of the originals, in order to frustrate any future police investigation of the leaks. The documents were widely quoted in the British press immediately following the ''Telegraph'''s story, for example in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and ''
The Sunday Herald The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre ...
''. On 5 October 2004, facsimiles of these documents appeared online, provided by Professor Michael Lewis of
Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...
, who had also housed the file at Iraq expert Glen Rangwala's Middle East Reference website. The file derives ultimately from the typed transcript of the documents made by Smith and the ''Telegraph''. Interest in these documents was revived around 8 June 2005, following their appearance in a discussion thread at Democratic Underground and subsequently they began to be quoted in US media, after Rawstory and
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
verified their authenticity with Smith and British government sources. The ''Los Angeles Times'' published an article on 15 June 2005, describing several of the "new" documents; the article says that " Michael Smith, the defense writer for ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' who revealed the Downing Street minutes in a story 1 May, provided a full text of the six new documents to the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
''." The six documents are available in PDF form from the Think Progress web site. A further document, a 21 July 2002, cabinet office paper titled "Conditions for Military Action", which is a briefing paper for the meeting of which the Downing Street Memo is the minutes, was published (with the last page missing) by ''The Sunday Times'' on 12 June 2005. Another document was the Rycroft email, showing the author of the Downing Street Memo actually believed that Saddam should be removed because of a threat by Iraq getting WMDs into the hands of terrorists. The 18 September 2004 article in ''The Daily Telegraph'' contains the only known reproductions of the original memos (scanned from a photocopy). That article is called "Failure is not an option, but it doesn't mean they will avoid it". On Thursday, 16 June 2005 Reuters mislabelled a photograph of what it claimed was "a copy of the Downing Street Memo". It turned out to actually be a picture of a document found in a 28 April 2005 Guardian Unlimited story. (At this link, view this PDF: 07.03.03: Attorney general's full advice on Iraq war (pdf)) This PDF detailed Lord Goldsmith's confidential advice on the legality of the Iraq war and does not match the text of any of the alleged Downing Street Memos. It's an entirely different document that describes legal authorisation for the invasion of Iraq under standing UN resolutions.


Criticism of the memo

Journalists such as Fred Kaplan point out that the later section of the memo that discusses potential consequences of an invasion, including Saddam's use of WMD against Kuwait or Israel, directly contradicts interpretations of the memo as a "smoking gun" about WMD fabrication. As mentioned above, shortly after the appearance of the memo, Tony Blair was asked: Blair responded: It is not clear whether this is a criticism of the assessment of his own head of foreign intelligence (Dearlove) or a criticism of a particular interpretation of Dearlove's phrase "fixed around".


"Fixed"

The interpretation of the sentence: "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." has caused debate. Robin Niblett, a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, has said it would be easy for Americans to misunderstand the reference to intelligence being "fixed around" Iraq policy. " 'Fixed around' in British English means 'bolted on' rather than altered to fit the policy," he says. This view was seconded by
Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...
and Fred Kaplan. Others have suggested various British English usages of the phrase "were being fixed" (for example as a colloquialism meaning "to agree upon,") which are distinct from the usage (both American and British) derived from criminal
argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...
, meaning "fraudulently altered or changed." The author of the memo, Matthew Rycroft, employed the former usage in an e-mail when talking about an appointment, ''This is now fixed for 0800''. Some detractors from the memo have appeared to make the argument or give the impression that the "fraudulently altered" sense of "fix" is uniquely American and does not exist in British English, but this is false. Other commentators have dismissed this, saying that context makes it clear that "being fixed around" used "fix" in the sense of "fraudulently arrange the result", a common British usage (sense 12(b) of "fix" in the printed Concise Oxford English Dictionary, given as sense 7, "deviously influence the outcome of" in the Compact OED online version.) The argument has also been made that this view is supported by negative qualification implied by the presence of the word "But" at the start of the relevant sentence: "But the intelligence and facts were being (innocently) ''agreed upon'' around the policy" is, it is said, an implausible reading because there is nothing negative, per se, about agreement, whereas "But the intelligence and facts were being ''fraudulently arranged'' ...", it is argued, appears to make perfect sense, because it fulfills the negative expectation set up by the word "but". Fred Kaplan noted that "Either way—'fixed' or 'fixed around'—Bush and his aides had decided to let policy shape intelligence, not the other way around; they were explicitly politicising intelligence." When asked about the memo's implication that Iraq intelligence was being "fixed", White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "The suggestion is just flat-out wrong." But McClellan would later admit that intelligence was suited to fit the policy in a tell-all book. An Iraq "options paper", dated 8 March 2002, stated: "Despite sanctions, Iraq continues to develop WMD" (though it adds that intelligence on the matter is "poor").


See also

* Bush–Aznar memo * Bush–Blair 2003 Iraq memo *
Iraq Dossier ''Iraq – Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation'' (more commonly known as the ''Iraq Dossier'', the ''February Dossier'' From pages 35–42 o"The Decision to go to War in Iraq: Ninth Report of Session 2002-03" (PDF). or th ...
– follow-up to the September Dossier * Iraq Inquiry *
Niger uranium forgeries 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 N ...
*
Office of Special Plans An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific du ...
*
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' ...
*
Plame affair The Plame affair (also known as the CIA leak scandal and Plamegate) was a political scandal that revolved around journalist Robert Novak's public identification of Valerie Plame as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer in 2003. In 2002, ...
*
September Dossier ''Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government'', also known as the ''September Dossier'', was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to dis ...
– UK government report on Iraq threat pre-war *
United Nations Security Council and the Iraq War In March 2003 the United States government announced that "diplomacy has failed" and that it would proceed with a "coalition of the willing" to rid Iraq under Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction the US and UK falsely insisted it poss ...


References


External links


Michael Smith
The UK journalist who obtained and published the 'Downing Street memos'
'Failure is not an option, but it doesn't mean they will avoid it'
by Michael Smith September 2004 * by Michael Smith 29 May 2005 * by Michael Smith 12 June 2005
The Real News in the Downing Street Memos
by Michael Smith 23 June 2005
Iraq, Tony and the truth
BBC Panorama 21 March 2005 * '' CSM'' 17 May 2005 * '' Newsday'' 9 May 2005 * RealCities.com 29 October 2003
AfterDowningStreet.org
After Downing Street (a coalition campaigning for the US Congress to formally investigate whether President Bush committed impeachable offences in connection with the Iraq war)
DowningStreetMemo.com
– 'The Downing Street Memo: Seeking The truth since 13 May 2005' (informational website with texts and other resources to put the documents in context, plus news and commentary; it also supports congressional request for investigation) {{DEFAULTSORT:Downing Street Memo 2002 documents 2005 in American politics 2005 in British politics Causes and prelude of the Iraq War Classified documents George W. Bush administration controversies History of the Labour Party (UK) Memoranda Political scandals in the United Kingdom Stances and opinions regarding the Iraq War Tony Blair