Downing Street Memo Cliff Notes: Cheat sheet on the memos behind the scandal

Memogate

In case you haven’t made time to download all of the Downing
Street Memos, we at the RS Blog would like to offer our Cliffs
Notes.

Leaked by one or more high-ranking Brits, the memos consist of
seven official documents that together paint a damning portrait of
the U.S. march to war in Iraq.

The original "Downing Street Memo" — in which Sir Richard
Dearlove, head of Britain’s intelligence service MI6, reported that
"war was now seen as inevitable" and that "intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the policy" — has been held up as a
smoking gun, proof that the Bush administration lied about
seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict with Iraq, and cherry
picked intel to overhype the threat of Saddam Hussein and his
alleged WMD.

The six supporting memos provide ample context as to how — and
to what extent — that might actually have been done.

For those eager to paint the entire war rationale as a sham, the
six earlier memos are a bit inconvenient. They reveal that our
British allies shared a genuine alarm over Iraq’s WMD capabilities.
British officials found Saddam’s unconventional weapons programs
"extremely worrisome." However, they also admitted that recent
intelligence was "poor."

Across the board, the memos show British decision makers
struggling to justify Iraq as a unique threat — above and beyond
the other worrisome, WMD-armed states in Axis of Evil. But that
Saddam had chemical and biological weapons, and might even be
reckless enough to use them against Israel during an invasion, was
not substantially in doubt.

In contrast, British officials were highly dubious of any link
between Iraq and terrorism; one memo describes the Bush
administration as "scrambling" to produce evidence of such a
connection, an effort the author calls "frankly unconvincing." Such
doubts, however, didn’t stop anyone on either the American or
British side from holding up the confluence of terrorism and WMD as
the primary justification for war.

The impression that emerges most sharply from these documents is
that decision-makers in the Bush administration were deeply
committed to removing Saddam Hussein through military action well
over a year before the invasion. It’s also clear that hawks in the
administration would have been content to go to war even without
British help — without the song and dance at the U.N., without the
game of chicken with Saddam over the weapons inspectors. "Regime
change" was the policy, whatever the justification.

That the path to war ultimately passed through the U.N. seems a
direct result of British influence. Tony Blair & Co. convinced
the Bush administration to give the war a veneer of legitimacy
under international law by orchestrating an elaborate PR scheme
hooked to a security council resolution. As UK ambassador to
Washington Chris Meyer wrote, "We backed regime change, but the
plan had to be clever." That’s because, as another memo notes,
"regime change has no basis under international law."

Judging from the memos, no one in either camp put any faith in
the U.N. process achieving a peaceful end. The intention was never
to leave a weakened, disarmed Hussein in power. The clear intent,
as Meyer also wrote, was to "wrongfoot Saddam" into a material
breach of U.N. requirements and thereby justify military
action.

Why were the British so eager to sign onto this unpopular war?
Again, the concern over WMD seems to play an honest role. But there
was also a desire to make sure that the march to war and the
invasion itself were carried out in the least-worst manner. The
authors of a document called the Options Paper described this
objective as: "sustaining UK/US co-operation, including, if
necessary, by moderating US policy."

The memos are, by turns, darkly humorous (Meyer writes that Paul
Wolfowitz told him, "It was true that Chalabi was not the easiest
person to work with. But he had a good record in bringing high-grade defectors out
of Iraq. The CIA stubbornly refused to recognise this,") and
infuriating — one memo cites "unfinished business from 1991" as a
motivating factor for the Bush administration.

But in their troubleshooting of the postwar period, the memos
are achingly prescient. The British shared — over and over again
— a deep concern that the U.S. had no clear plan for "the morning
after." Their concerns were, all too clearly, never heeded.

The Downing Street Seven

Here, quickly, is a rundown of the seven memos in chronological
order. (The excerpts that follow, grouped by subject, attempt to
retain this order.)

The earliest memo is known as the
Options Paper and was prepared by Tony Blair’s top
national-security aides. It dates from March 8, 2002, when we were
still cleaning up in Afghanistan — a full three months before the
Loya Jirga installed Hamid Karzai as that country’s president, more
than a year before the invasion of Iraq.

Next comes a memo from British foreign policy adviser
David Manning to Tony Blair, dated March 14, which details a
Manning’s meeting with Condi Rice.

A March 18 memo, written by
Christopher Meyer, then UK ambassador to Washington, is his
report to Manning of a subsequent meeting with Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

From March 22 comes a memo written by
Peter Rickets — think: the British Karl Rove — that weighs
the political implications of marching to war with the
Americans.

In advance of Blair’s trip to Texas, State Secretary
Jack Straw wrote an explosive March 25 memo that begins: "The
rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few."

There’s then a four-month gap.

The next memo, dated July 21, is known as the
Cabinet Office Paper and details "conditions for military
action." It was written in advance of the meeting whose minutes
have become infamous as . . .

. . . the original
Downing Street Memo.

The Downing Street Reader

On Weapons Worries

Iraq continues to develop WMD, although
intelligence is poor. (Options)

With his regime in danger, Saddam could use WMD, either before
or during an invasion. Saddam could also target Israel . . .
restraining Israel will be difficult. (
Options)

Iraq continues with its B[iological]W[eapons] and
C[hemical]W[eapons] programmes and, if it has not already done so
could produce significant quantities of BW agents
within days and CW agent within weeks of a decision to do so.
(Options)

On the True Nature of the Threat

There is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam
will use WMD. (
Options)

Sanctions have effectively
frozen Iraq’s nuclear programme. (Options)

The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam
Hussein’s WMD programmes, but our tolerance of them . . . attempts
to claim otherwise publicly will
increase skepticism about our case . . . even the best survey
of Iraq’s WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years
on the nuclear, missile or
C[hemical]W[eapons]/B[iological]W[eapons] fronts: the programmes
are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been
stepped up. (Rickets)

In the documents so far presented it has been hard to glean
whether the threat from Iraq is so significantly different from
that of Iran or North Korea as to justify action. (
Straw)

Objectively, the threat from Iraq has not worsened as a result
of 11 September. (
Straw)

The case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and
his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or
Iran. (
DSM — minutes from Straw’s presentation)

On Saddam’s Links to Terror

There is no recent evidence of Iraq complicity with
international terrorism. There is therefore no justification for
action against Iraq based on action in self-defense to combat
imminent threat of terrorism as in Afghanistan. (
Options)

U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Aaida
[sic] is so far frankly
unconvincing. (Rickets)

There has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with
U[sama]B[in]L[aden] and Al Qaida.
Straw

On the Push for Regime Change

The U.S. has lost confidence in containment. Some in government
want Saddam removed. The success of Operation Enduring Freedom,
distrust of U.N. sanctions and inspection regimes, and

are all factors. U.S. may be
willing to work with a much smaller coalition than we think
desirable. (Options)

Condi’s enthusiasm for regime change is
undimmed. (Manning)

U.S. military planning unambiguously takes as its objective the
removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, followed by elimination if
[sic] Iraqi WMD. (
Cabinet)

C reported on his recent talks in Washington . . . 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. (
DSM — minutes reflecting the report of Sir Richard Dearlove,
the chief of the MI6 Secret Intelligence)

On the Legalities

We have
dismissed assassination of Saddam Hussein as an option because
it would be illegal. (Options)

Regime change has no basis in international law. (
Options)

Regime change per se is no justification for military action.
(
Straw)

On the Aftermath

Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions: . . . —
what happens the morning after? (
Manning)

We also have to answer the big question — what will this action
achieve? There seems to be
a larger hole in this than in anything. No one has
satisfactorily answered . . . how there can be any certainty that
the replacement regime will be better. (Straw)

In particular little though has been given to creating the
political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how
to shape it. (
Cabinet)

A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and
costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the U.S.
military plans are
virtually silent on this point. (Cabinet)

There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after
military action. (
DSM MI6 director’s report)

On the PR Campaign

Bush wants to hear your views on Iraq before taking decisions .
. . This gives you real influence: on the public relations
strategy; on the U.N. and weapons inspections. (
Manning)

The U.S. 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 S[ecurity] C[ouncil]
R[esolution]s and the critical importance of the M[iddle] E[ast]
P[eace] P[rocess] as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy.
(
Meyer, referring to his meeting with Wolfowitz.)

For Iraq, "regime change" does not stand up. It sounds like
a grudge match between Bush and Saddam. Much better as you have
suggested, to make the objective ending the threat . . . from
Saddam’s WMD. (Rickets)

Tim Dickinson encourages you to not take his word for it. Read
the memos
yourself.

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