The Smoking Gun….Ignored.

Imagine a world where “Deepthroat” went public, and the evidence behind Watergate was there for all to see…

…but the media decided not to report it.

It didn’t happen in the 1970s, but it sure as hell is happening right now.

There is a “smoking memo” that confirms that the Bush Administration went to war on false pretenses. It has been validated, and, although the memo generated huge pre-election headlines in Britain, its existence has hardly been mentioned by the American media.

On May 1, the Sunday Times of London published the confidential minutes of a meeting held almost three years ago, in July of 2002, between Tony Blair and members of his Cabinet. They discussed the British government’s ongoing consultations with the Bush administration over Iraq. Those in attendance included the defense secretary, the foreign secretary, the attorney general, the intelligence chief and Blair’s closest personal aides.
The full text of the minutes of that meeting, set down in a memorandum by foreign policy advisor Matthew Rycroft, is available here.

Example quotes (comments and emphasis in bold added by me):

“C (the codename of the head of MI6) reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. 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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.“

and:

“The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.”

Months after this meeting, when Bush signed the congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq on Oct. 16, 2002, he was lying when he assured Americans and the world that he still hoped war could be avoided. “I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use of force will not become necessary,” he said at the time. “Hopefully this can be done peacefully. Hopefully we can do this without any military action.”

Yet the memo clearly shows that the invasion was a fait accompli, months earlier, and that the “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

So, where is the American media on this story? Why is this not the headline of every major newspaper and filling hours of TV time?

Is anyone else terrified by the implications of the silence?