Downing Street Memo Gets Second Glance
"For many liberals already frustrated with the media's coverage of President Bush, it has become a rallying cry over the past six weeks: What about the Downing Street memo?" writes gadfly Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post.
Their anger, amplified by left-wing advocacy groups, columnists, bloggers and some Democrats in Congress, has gradually forced the mainstream media to take a second look at a document that received spotty coverage after it was reported May 1 by London's Sunday Times.Journalists offered various explanations for the scant attention paid to the July 2002 British memo, which, in recounting a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top aides, said that the Bush administration had "fixed" the intelligence on Iraq and that war was inevitable. They said the memo was old, that the U.S. mobilization for war was widely reported at the time, that there was an initial distrust of a British press report. Some maintained that the memo didn't prove anything.
But Peter Hart of the liberal group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which sent out several "action alerts" urging members to contact news organizations, said, "Any story that reminds readers that the political and journalistic establishments spectacularly failed on Iraq is a difficult story for the media to report." Now, he said, in conjunction with groups such as MoveOn.org, "activists have pushed this into the media, much to the chagrin of reporters, who have no love for getting e-mails constantly telling them to do the story."
For the past 15 years, conservatives have used their outlets - in talk radio, right-leaning news operations, editorial pages and, more recently, blogs - to pressure mainstream journalists into covering stories that might otherwise be ignored. And they have had striking success, from allegations about President Bill Clinton's personal life to CBS's questionable documents on President Bush's National Guard service to the Swift Boat Veterans' attacks on Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in last year's presidential campaign.
Now the left can claim a similar success, Kurtz admits.
Why do any reporters have trouble understanding this story? The damn war was going to happen no matter what. It was planned by the neocon think tanks prior to 9/11.
The memo, a real "smoking gun," just proves it. But the lapdog press just publishes the denials by Bush and Blair and moves on to the next runaway bride story as if they possessed the same import.
Add 1: Robert Parry at Consortiumnews.com just released this story on the issue: LMSM, the 'Lying Mainstream Media'
Add 2: The AP just released this story: Lawmakers Push Resolution on Iraq Pullout
Add 3: Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), joined by 122 Democrats in the House and 500,000 citizens in a letter to President Bush to be delivered tonight, issued this statement in advance of the hearing today on the Downing Street documents.
"Few issues are more important under our constitutional form of government than the decision to go to war and place our soldiers lives at risk . . . "
It is no insignificant matter when in the fall of 2002 President Bush told us that war would be his last resort. It is not unimportant when on March 6, 2003, the president promised us, "I've not made up [my] mind about military action."Over the last two months, the veracity of those statements has - to put it mildly -- come into question:
* On May 1, the London Times released the now infamous Downing Street Minutes, in which the head of Britain's intelligence agency reported "military action [by the U.S.] was now seen as inevitable ... and "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." A former senior U.S. official subsequently told Knight Ridder that the minutes were "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired."
* On May 29, further documents were released revealing that in the summer of 2002, British and U.S. aircraft had doubled their rates of bombing in Iraq, in an apparent attempt to provoke an excuse for war.* Last Sunday, the London Times released six new British documents corroborating the Downing Street Minutes and indicating that as early as March of 2002, our government had decided it would be "necessary to create the conditions" to justify war.
* Today Newsweek is reporting that two high ranking British Officials confirmed that by 2002, Iraq's nuclear weapons program was "effectively frozen" and there was "no recent evidence" tying Iraq to international terrorism.
If these disclosures are true - and so far no one from the Bush Administration has bothered to respond to our letters -- they establish a prima facie case of going to war under false pretenses. This means that more than 1,600 brave Americans and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis would have lost their lives for a lie.
That is why we are here today. That is why 122 Members of Congress - which as of today includes the Minority Leader -- have asked the president to explain his actions. That is why more than 550,000 Americans are joining with us in demanding answers from the Administration.
We are here because many of us find it unacceptable for any Administration - be it Democratic or Republican - to put our troops in harms way based on false information. The fact that our intelligence turned out to be flawed in no way absolves those who would intentionally mislead our nation or its allies.
We can't do anything in this hearing to change the facts on the ground in Iraq today, but we can pledge today to do everything within our power to find out how we got here and make sure it never happens again.
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Posted by: Rowland Scherman | June 16, 2005 09:30 PM
You May be Brainwashed by Corporate Media if You:
... believe the 5 corporations who own almost all of the media in the U.S. are liberal.
... believe $300 billion of U.S. tax money, allocated for the war and reconstruction in Iraq is actually going to Iraq
... are unaware Iraq had 650 million barrels of oil in reserve just before the war in Iraq .
... are unaware at least $8.8 billion is known to be missing in Iraqi oil revenue from the period the U.S. was in control of Iraq
... are unaware 198 million in Iraqi dollars is missing from the Iraq treasury from the period the U.S. was in control of Iraq .
... are unaware that war is exceptionally profitable for a small number of investors.
... believe Halliburton's no-bid contracts have nothing to do with former CEO, now Vice President Dick Cheney.
... are unaware that the Iraq war is the biggest case of war profiteering in human history.
... believe Saddam Hussein or Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, Al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.
... are unaware the U.S. has killed more than 10,000 innocent women and children in Iraq with cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions.
... believe depleted uranium weapons are not radioactive or deadly weapons of mass destruction (they are 12% less radioactive than nuclear weapons grade uranium and very deadly).
... believe wealthy, warmongers can also be true Christians.
... are unaware stem cell research threatens the pharmaceutical industry by curing and preventing diseases which drug companies profit from by treating with drugs.
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... are unaware the Boston Tea party was a protest against corporate corruption (East India Company).
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... are unaware the definition of fascism is: 'The marriage of corporation and state' -- Benito Mussolini.
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... are unaware that NOT funding 'No Child Left Behind' is dismantling funding for schools in poor neighborhoods, which expands poverty, lowers wages and increases corporate profits.
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If you believe Fox News is fair and balanced, you have been brainwashed by corporate owned media.
link
Posted by: Malcolm Lawrence | June 16, 2005 11:34 PM