Got nuthin', so I'll pass on some Downing Street stuff

A busy day at work and a raging headache conspired to basically put me out of blogging magazine publishing today. Sorry, but I feel pretty crappy (it's hot here, and I've not been drinking enough...so I get headaches a lot).

I'll be back to beat the wingnuts up tomorrow, but for now I leave you to consider this (from late 2003):

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".

Didn't make much of a flash in the pan back then, but Perle's comments take on a whole new meaning in light of:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Perle's comments in '03 make it clear that the Administration/Downing Street knew what they were doing was illegal, at least on an international level. Given that they knew it was wrong and justified doing it anyway, it's not a stretch at all to believe the intel/facts were being fitted to the admittedly illegal policy, in an attempt to make it "legal".

Chew on that for a bit. It has a bit of a bad taste, doesn't it?


Contact your Congressmen.

Get your Senators involved.

Give them your opinion on the subject.

BBA

Downing Street Memo