You Want the Truth? You Can't Pay Attention to the Truth!

Bill Says:

Would you please put this on your Blog. Why isn't this front-page news?

from
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/06/08/excerpts_of_the_
downing_street_memo/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+World+News

Matthew Rycroft, a top foreign policy aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair,
wrote the memo, which is dated July 23, 2002, based on notes he took during
a meeting of Blair and his advisers. The memo was first disclosed by The
Sunday Times on May 1:

C [reported to be Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain's intelligence
service who had recently met with Bush administration officials] 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
[Hussein], through military action, justified by the conjunction of
terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around
the policy. The NSC [US National Security Council] 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. . . .

The defense secretary [Geoffrey Hoon] said that the United States had
already begun ''spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No
decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds
for military action to begin was January. . . .

The foreign secretary [Jack Straw] said he would discuss this with Colin
Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take
military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was
thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was
less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran. We should work up a plan for
an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This
would also help with the legal justification for the use of force. . . .

The prime minister said that it would make a big difference politically and
legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and
WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the
WMD.

Source: The Sunday Times

My short answer is the great "Tom the Dancing Bug" strip in Salon. (Subscription required, though I think they can make conditional exceptions for one-time views.)

True war-watching tales: Caught in the grip of a war so boring and repetitive, Americans can hardly stand it!