Below our gracious host posted a BBC story about a new leaked memo from the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The memo supposedly records a Bush-Blair White House summit on January 31, 2003, at which they (among other things) agreed on war whether or not they got a second UN resolution.
Is the memo real, and an accurate depiction of events? Well, Bush and Blair definitely did meet on January 31. And something else the memo says is that Bush told Blair “that the US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and threaten.”
Now, perhaps you remember the leaked email from the NSA about its plans to bug the members of the UN Security Council:
…the Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council (UNSC) members (minus US and GBR of course) for insights as to how to membership is reacting to the on-going debate RE: Iraq, plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/ negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies, etc - the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals…
Again, the date of the Bush-Blair meeting was January 31, 2003.
Thanks to everyone who took part in our little experiment. I like to believe that this site has a thoughtful and engaged audience, but it’s gratifying to have that confirmed so decisively. I’m closing down comments for the moment, but I imagine they’ll be back in some form or another before too long.
Lemme just start by saying I respect Cindy Sheehan. I think her activism has given voice to hundreds of grieving military families who are enraged at the Bush Administration. My mom even went to visit Camp Casey over the summer and i printed the photos on the site. So it’s with a heavy heart that I’ve got to ask this question :
What the hell are you thinking?!
Getting cuddly with Hugo Chavez and thanking him for “supporting life and peace”? Do you know anything about Hugo Chavez other than the fact that he hates George Bush? Here’s an eye-opener from Human Rights Watch :
Amendments to Venezuela’s Criminal Code that entered into force last week may stifle press criticism of government authorities and restrict the public’s ability to monitor government actions, Human Rights Watch said today.
“By broadening laws that punish disrespect for government authorities, the Venezuelan government has flouted international human rights principles that protect free expression,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “While countries across Latin America are moving to repeal such laws, Venezuela has enacted further restrictions on the press that will shield officials from public scrutiny.”
The amendments extend the scope of existing provisions that make it a criminal offense to insult or show disrespect for the president and other government authorities. Venezuela’s measures run counter to a continent-wide trend to repeal such “disrespect” (or “desacato”) laws. In recent years, Argentina, Costa Rica, Paraguay, and Peru have already repealed such laws, and other countries like Chile and Panama are currently considering legislation that would do so.
. . .
Anyone convicted of offending these authorities could go to prison for up to 20 months. Anyone who gravely offends the president, on the other hand, can incur a penalty of up to 40 months in prison.
In other words, if you went to Caracas and tried to do the exact same thing you did in Crawford, you’d be in jail right now.
And though I wouldn’t use the word “dictator” to describe Chavez, I can see why people would jump to that conclusion after power grabs like this :
The Venezuelan Congress dealt a severe blow to judicial independence by packing the country’s Supreme Court with 12 new justices, Human Rights Watch said today. A majority of the ruling coalition, dominated by President Hugo Chávez’s party, named the justices late yesterday, filling seats created by a law passed in May that expanded the court’s size by more than half.
. . .
The law passed in May expanded the court from 20 to 32 members. In addition to the justices named to the 12 new seats, five justices were named to fill vacancies that had opened in recent months, and 32 more were named as reserve justices for the court. Members and allies of President Chávez’s Fifth Republic Movement (Movimiento V República, or MVR) form a majority in Congress.
. . .
The court-packing law signed in May also gave the governing coalition the power to remove judges from the Court without the two-thirds majority vote required under the constitution. In June, two justices retired after facing possible suspension from the Supreme Court as a result of these new provisions.
The political takeover of the Supreme Court will compound the damage already done to judicial independence by policies pursued by the court itself. The Supreme Court, which has administrative control over the judiciary, has failed to provide security of tenure to 80 percent of the country’s judges. In March, the court summarily fired three judges after they had decided politically controversial cases.
For those of you who have the knee-jerk reaction of defending anyone described as “leftist”, just because Chavez helps the poor by providing cheap petroleum, sending doctors into the barrios, and setting up a market to provide partially-subsidized food, doesn’t change the fact that he’s acting like a despot. Harassment of political opponents and the slow crawl toward a one-party state are things I hate about George W. Bush and the Republican party, so I don’t see why Chavez should get a free pass.
The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.
Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell’s “1984.”
“That’s Big Brother watching you,” the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.
Mr. Liddy’s complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city.
Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated.
A British reader sends a link to this story. The anonymous sourcing makes it difficult to know how reliable an account it is, but it seems worth noting:
Tony Blair and George W Bush decided to invade Iraq weeks earlier than they have admitted, a new book by a human rights lawyer has claimed.
The book by Philippe Sands says the two leaders discussed going to war regardless of any United Nations view.
And it suggests the US wanted to provoke Saddam Hussein by sending a spy plane over Iraq in UN colours.
Downing Street said on Thursday it did not comment on discussions that “may or may not have happened” between leaders.
‘Disarm Saddam’
The revelations come in an updated edition of Mr Sands’ book Lawless World, which caused controversy when it was first published early last year.
The government has always insisted military action was used as a last resort against Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Mr Blair told MPs on 25 February 2003: “Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully.”
But the new book centres on a two hour meeting between Mr Bush and Mr Blair at the White House three weeks earlier, on 31 January.
Professor Sands, a QC and professor of international law at University College London, says the two-hour meeting was also attended by six advisers.
The book quotes from a note it says was prepared by one of the participants.
According to the note, Mr Bush said the military campaign was pencilled in for March. Mr Blair is quoted as saying he was “solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam”.
The book claims Mr Blair only wanted a second UN Security Council resolution because it would make it easier politically to deal with Saddam.
And it says Mr Bush, told Mr Blair the US “was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours”.
If the Iraqis Saddam fired on them, the would be in breach of UN resolutions, he suggested.
Mr Bush is also quoted saying it was possible an Iraqi figure would defect and be able to give a “public presentation” of weapons of mass destruction.
The note said Mr Bush thought there was also “a small possibility that Saddam would be assassinated”.
The book also claims the president “thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups”.
None of this is especially surprising, if true, but neither was the Downing Street Memo, really. It all just confirms what any sufficiently cynical human being understood to be happening at the time. (And here, I use the term ‘cynic’ as Ambrose Bierce defined it: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.)
