The Smarter Darren Bernard

Posted on Fri, May. 06, 2005 Memo says Bush wanted data to justify Saddam's removal

Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — A classified British memo, leaked in the midst of Britain's just-concluded election campaign, indicates President Bush decided by summer 2002 to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy.

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.

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.

"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.

The memo said "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The White House has denied accusations that it manipulated intelligence estimates to justify an invasion of Iraq.

It has instead pointed to the conclusions of two studies that cite serious failures by the CIA and other agencies in judging Saddam's weapons programs.

The principal U.S. intelligence analysis 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.

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.

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.

A White House official said the administration wouldn't comment on the documents.

In July 2002, and for some time afterward, Bush administration advisers insisted "there are no plans to attack Iraq on the president's desk."

But the memo quotes British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as saying that "Bush had made up his mind to take military action."