America Sleeps Through Revelation of 'Downing Street Memo'

The Sunday Times of London revealed in its May 1 edition a secret memo prepared by a British national security aide from notes made during a July 2002 meeting between Tony Blair and his national security team. Included in the memo were possible plans for dealing with the 'threat' of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The memo discusses the likelihood that Saddam had WMDs (less likely, according to the memo, than the capabilities of Libya, North Korea, or Iran), likely scenarios for attack plans, the expected response by Saddam and what type of attack he was most likely expecting, and a brief notation about the intelligence-gathering process.

According to the memo, the United States believed that "military action was now...inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD." Apparently, though, the U.S. was experiencing difficulty in finding the justification demanded by Bush to satisfy his plans. As a result, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Uh, EXCUSE ME??????? Let's repeat that last bit..."the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Could someone please explain to me why this information has not been flooding the 'liberal media' for the last two weeks? Why did it take the Washington Post nearly two weeks to run a follow-up story with their own reporting? The Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times have barely mentioned it. Has the New York Times published anything related to the story? The executive branch of our government planned NINE months prior to the beginning of the Iraq War to FIX intelligence and facts to fit its pre-existing policy, and this country sits idly trusting the president and his closest advisors to do what is right for this country. WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO WAKE PEOPLE UP???

As Helen Thomas writes in her syndicated column--

I am not surprised at the duplicity. But I am astonished at the acceptance of this deception by voters in the United States and the United Kingdom.

I've seen two US presidents go down the drain – Lyndon B. Johnson on Vietnam and Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal – because they were no longer believed. But times change – and I guess our values do, too.

"Times change and...our values do, too." We don't care that our leaders lie to us, make lucrative deals to benefit themselves, and take vast sums of money from special interest groups in violation of ethics regulations--just as long as they stop abortions and keep gay people from gettin' married!! (Oh, and by the way...conservative Republicans have controlled the White House, both Houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court for the last nine, five, and fifteen(?) years, respectively--have they ended abortion or stopped gay marriages yet? NO...and they aren't likely too, either. If they did, then what would they use to make sure you continue to re-elect them?) What has happened to our nation? Grrrrrr....