Need clarification - re: UK memo

[zippy890]

Could somebody who is good at political analysis and writing please read this paragraph, from today's WAPO, and restate this crucial issue in a way that people can grasp its importance.

-snip-

"The key line in the leaked memo, in my view, is the assessment by British intelligence, after a visit to Washington, that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." That kind of assertion has been made by critics and commentators, but it has not been included in official post-invasion assessments here about how the country went to war under what turned out to be false premises about weapons of mass destruction and other matters. Investigating that assessment, coming from the key U.S. ally in the war, certainly seems journalistically mandatory. Indeed, while official U.S. commissions and committees have documented just how bad U.S. intelligence was, they have stopped short of assessing what happened to that intelligence after it was prepared."
-snip-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400705.html

Sounds like a 'conspiracy of deceit' to me.

edited for typos

[zippy890]

1. lets zoom in on this - its got legs

we need to help it walk

[giant_robot]

4. Keep it alive in the blogosphere and the MSM will take notice...

...remember what happened to Trent Lott.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Do you mean you want the WP's ombudsman's view restated

or do you want a simple paragraph about the memo and why it's important? In the second case, we can go firther than the ombudsman did.

[Melodybe]

3. They have been lying from the start. End of story.

Thanks Zippy for the snip.

[zippy890]

5. if we stick to the ombud's view

and restate it simply, maybe all it takes is something like

Downing Street Memo proves Bush & Blair fixed the facts on Iraq

thats it, really, its proof these countries' leaders conspired to deceive.

I think sometimes we go to far in our claims for the media to believe us, and if we just get some traction on this very basic issue brought out by the downing st memo we'll get further with the press.

edited for typos

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. OK, we can keep it simple

Downing Street Memo proves Bush fixed the facts on Iraq

At a top level meeting in July 2002, the British Foreign Secretary said the evidence that Saddam posessed WMD was 'thin', and that he was not a threat to his neighbours. The head of the British intelligence service said, after talks in Washington, that an American invasion was already inevitable, and that "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 British Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action, and the only possible legal base was United Nations Security Council authorisation. The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors.

The memo proves that the President had already decided to invade Iraq to depose Saddam by July 2002, but was fixing intelligence and facts to justify this.

[zippy890]

11. Yes - well put!

Its no longer partisan sniping about lies - there it is -PROOF

how can the media ignore the evidence?!

I think americans are in ostrich mode - heads in the ground - about Iraq.

but that doesn't excuse the media's poor coverage

[Roland99]

6. Their own headline pisses me off!! "News Over There, but Not Here"

Well, damnit! MAKE it news over here!!

[many a good man]

7. GB's lack of interest gives MSM cover

This story came out before the election and they reelected Blair any way.

[Spazito]

8. How many ways can the media avoid using the word LIED?

So far we have, just from this snip:

"facts fixed" and "false premises"

we have also had:

misled
untruths
omissions
evasions
distortions
unwitting exaggerations
fabricate

I am sure I have barely touched upon the various descriptive words used to avoid the simple fact that blair and bush LIED and, I suspect, the media will continue to try and avoid the word "LIE" even if they have to start inventing new phrases to do it.

When I read the snip above, to me it boils down to:

bush and blair lied and nothing is being done about it.

[Toots]

9. Whoop...... There it is

This is the story. Mainstream Media refuses to report on story..
"Investigating that assessment, coming from the key U.S. ally in the war, certainly seems journalistically mandatory. Indeed, while official U.S. commissions and committees have documented just how bad U.S. intelligence was, they have stopped short of assessing what happened to that intelligence after it was prepared."