WASHINGTON — It started during British Prime Minister Tony Blair's re-election campaign last month, when details leaked about a top-secret memo, written in July 2002 — eight months before the Iraq war. In the memo, British officials just back from Washington reported that prewar "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" to invade Iraq.[That's my emphasis.] Wow! NBC says this?? Incredible!!
Just last week, President Bush and Blair vigorously denied that war was inevitable.
“No, the facts were not being fixed, in any shape or form at all,” said Blair at a White House news conference with the president on June 7.
But now, war critics have come up with seven more memos, verified by NBC News.
As usual, the article gives the administration side of the story, but -- as has happened all too rarely -- it doesn't give the administration the last word. See here:
Vice President Dick Cheney also told a National Press Club luncheon Monday, “Any suggestion that we did not exhaust all alternatives before we got to that point, I think, is inaccurate.”Beautiful. We could use a few more reports like this one. "bush mouthpiece says blah blah blah ... but in fact woof woof woof!"
In fact, current and former diplomats tell NBC News they understood from the beginning the Bush policy to be that Saddam had to be removed — one way or the other. The only question was when and how.
And once again we see big dick cheney practicing a little Truth By Inversion, because in fact:
Any suggestion that they exhausted all alternatives before waging war is inaccurate.
Any suggestion that they tried to make it appear as though they had exhausted all alternatives before waging war is accurate.
Those of us who were paying attention saw it coming a long way down the road and we knew what they were doing. We were saying the same thing then that we're saying now. The only difference, in my view, is that now some of the so-called major media are agreeing with us.
Maybe we're not so crazy after all!