More British Documents Leaked
Breaking News Later Today From RawStory.com
Evidence / From After Downing Street Dot Org
BREAKING NEWS
Later today RawStory.com will be posting an article that they have been researching for several days. Six new secret British documents have been
leaked and made widely available on the internet, including via the links below. These were retyped from the originals
to protect the source, but RawStory.com has verified the authenticity and will be reporting on that research, on the significance of the documents, and on the
timeline of the events illuminated by this information, known to the British media but new on this side of the pond.
. "Iraq Options Paper," UK Overseas and Defense Secretariat, March 8, 2002
The greater investment of Western forces, the greater our control over Iraq's future, but the greater the cost and the
longer we would need to stay. The only certain means to remove Saddam and his elite is to invade and impose a new
government, but this could involve nation building over many years. Even a representative government could seek to
acquire WMD and build-up its conventional forces, so long as Iran and Israel retain their WMD and conventional armouries
and there was no acceptable solution to the Palestinian grievances.
SIGNIFICANCE: UK government anticipated "nation building over many years," in contradiction to public case by Bush
administration. British also believed Iraq might acquire WMD without Saddam Hussein in power.
We have looked at three options for regime change...
OPTION 3: A GROUND CAMPAIGN
The aim would be to launch a full-scale ground offensive... A pro-Western regime would be installed... The optimal
times to start action are early spring.
SIGNIFICANCE: Timing of invasion already set in March 2002. Aim is not an Iraq which can democratically choose its
policies, but a "pro-Western regime."
Most Iraqis see the INC/INA as Western stooges.
SIGNIFICANCE: The head of the INC (Iraqi National Congress) was Ahmed Chalabi; Chalabi is now acting Oil Minister of
Iraq. The head of the INA (Iraqi National Accord) was Ayad Allawi; Allawi was Prime Minister of the Iraqi Interim
government from June 1, 2004-April 7, 2005.
. "Iraq: Legal Background," UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, March 8, 2002
The US... maintain that the assessment of breach [of UN resolutions] is for individual member States. We are not aware
of any other State which supports this view.
SIGNIFICANCE: Bush administration's interpretation of international law, which eventually invoked for the invasion, was
so bizarre it was not shared by any other nation on earth (including UK).
. Memo from David Manning (Foreign Policy Advisor to Blair) to Blair on Manning's Dinner with Condoleezza Rice, March
14, 2002
I said you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public
opinion... Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed.... Bush has yet to find the answers to the big
questions:... what happens on the morning after?
SIGNIFICANCE: Aim was always regime change. Bush had no plan for future of Iraq.
. Memo from Christopher Meyer (UK Ambassador to US) to David Manning on Meyer's lunch with Wolfowitz, March 18, 2002
"On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used with Condi Rice last week. We backed regime
change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and
probably tougher elsewhere in Europe. The US could go it alone if it wanted to. But if it wanted to act with partners,
there had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to
wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN SCRs and the critical importance of the MEPP as an integral part of the
anti-Saddam strategy. If all this could be accomplished skillfully, we were fairly confident that a number of countries
would come on board."
SIGNIFICANCE: UN process was a sham for Blair's sake; aim was not disarmament but regime change, which had already been
decided on.
. Memo from Peter Ricketts (Political Director, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office) to Jack Straw (UK Foreign
Secretary), March 22, 2002
For Iraq, "regime change" does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam. Much better, as you have
suggested, to make the objective ending the threat to the international community from Iraqi WMD...
SIGNIFICANCE: Aim was regime change, but that wouldn't sell; WMD issue was useful for PR reasons.
US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al [Q]aida is so far frankly unconvincing.
SIGNIFICANCE: Even UK government at the highest levels believed the Bush administration claims of an Iraq-Al Qaida
links were false.
. Memo from Jack Straw to Blair, March 25, 2002
We have also to answer the big question-what will this action achieve?... [no US assessment] has satisfactorily
answered how that regime change is to be secured, and how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be
better.
SIGNIFICANCE: UK government at its highest levels did not believe the US had any plan to be certain a new Iraqi
government would be an improvement on Saddam and would not develop WMD.
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