New Downing Street Revelations Make it to PAGE 1 in Washington Post!
First front page coverage of UK Memos in WaPo!
By Brad Friedman on 6/12/2005, 1:38pm PT  

It's notable that Washington Post today is finally giving the matter of the Downing Street Minutes coverage at all, much less that they have advanced the story with new information, from new memos on today's Sunday front page! And, unlike previous Page 1 articles by WaPo's Walter Pincus, it looks like this one will stay there!

Today's front-page report covers new revelations from a briefing paper prepared for Tony Blair eight months before the War on Iraq, and states the Bush Administration were not preparing for what would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occuption of Iraq...

[T]he memo "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" notes that U.S. "military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but adds that "little thought" has been given to, among other things, "the aftermath and how to shape it."
...
Saying that "we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective," the memo's authors point out, "A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise." The authors add, "As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."

For our money, the delinquency of the Bush Administration in preparing for a Post-War Iraq, which has already cost the lives and limbs of thousands of U.S. Troops, is perhaps more reprehensible even than the revelations from the original "Downing Street Minutes" that the Administration would be "fixing" the intelligence around the policy of toppling Saddam through military means and lying both Congress and the American People about it.

And these jerks have the gall to speak to us about "supporting the troops"?!

The hell with impeachment, these folks deserve jail time for the death and destruction they have so carelessly and callously wrought!

All of that, in addition to more breaking news out from today's Sunday Times of London (as mentioned as it broke on last night's BRAD SHOW via RAW RADIO!) revealing that the Blair Administration knew that the war would be illegal, but that they had committed to going into it with the Bushies months before acknowledging it publicly. They endeavored to find a way to make the action "legal" in those pre-war months when it was assessed by the Brits as being an illegal incursion.

Amazing.

John Conyers' Hearings on all of the above, with members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, will occur this Thursday at 2pm ET. Please contact C-SPAN and ask them to carry the hearings live. For that matter, so should CNN, MSNBC, FNC as well as all three of the broadcast networks at this point!

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