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<H4 class=deck>Bush administration mum on leaked Brit document</H4>
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<P class=byline><SPAN class=name><A
href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/bylines.asp?bylinename=Warren P. Strobel">Warren
P. Strobel</A></SPAN> and <SPAN class=name><A
href="http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news/bylines.asp?bylinename=John Walcott">John
Walcott</A></SPAN><BR>Knight Ridder<BR>May 6, 2005</P><!---------Code for Big Ads-------------------><!---------End Code for Big Ads------------------->
<P>WASHINGTON – A highly classified British memo, leaked in the midst of
Britain's just-concluded election campaign, indicates that President Bush
decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was
determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy.</P>
<P>The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime
Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to
Washington by the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service.</P>
<P>The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring to the
American public that no decision had been made to go to war.</P>
<P>"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as
inevitable," the MI-6 chief said at the meeting, according to the memo. "Bush
wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of
terrorism and WMD," weapons of mass destruction.</P>
<P>The memo said "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the
policy."</P>
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<TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>No weapons of mass destruction have been found in
Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.</P>
<P>The White House has repeatedly denied accusations made by several top foreign
officials that it manipulated intelligence estimates to justify an invasion of
Iraq.</P>
<P>It has instead pointed to the conclusions of two studies, one by the Senate
Intelligence Committee and one by a presidentially appointed panel, that cite
serious failures by the CIA and other agencies in judging Saddam's weapons
programs.</P>
<P>The principal U.S. intelligence analysis, called a National Intelligence
Estimate, wasn't completed until October 2002, well after the United States and
United Kingdom had apparently decided military force should be used to overthrow
Saddam's regime.</P>
<P>The newly disclosed memo, which was first reported by the Sunday Times of
London, hasn't been disavowed by the British government. A spokesman for the
British Embassy in Washington referred queries to another official, who didn't
return calls for comment on Thursday.</P>
<P>A former senior U.S. official called it "an absolutely accurate description
of what transpired" during the senior British intelligence officer's visit to
Washington. He spoke on condition of anonymity.</P>
<P>A White House official said the administration wouldn't comment on leaked
British documents.</P>
<P>In July 2002, and well afterward, top Bush administration foreign policy
advisers were insisting that "there are no plans to attack Iraq on the
president's desk."</P>
<P>But the memo quotes British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a close colleague
of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, as saying that "Bush had made up his
mind to take military action."</P>
<P>Straw is quoted as having his doubts about the Iraqi threat.</P>
<P>"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," the memo reported
he said.</P>
<P>Straw reportedly proposed that Saddam be given an ultimatum to readmit United
Nations weapons inspectors, which could help justify the eventual use of
force.</P>
<P>Powell in August 2002 persuaded Bush to make the case against Saddam at the
United Nations and to push for renewed weapons inspections.</P>
<P>But there were deep divisions within the White House over that course of
action. The British document says that the National Security Council, then led
by Condoleezza Rice, "had no patience with the U.N. route."</P>
<P>Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee, is circulating a letter among fellow Democrats asking Bush for an
explanation of the document's charges, an aide
said.</P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>