Well, it's news to me...
I heard about this story on the Daily show, of all places.
Shakespeare's sister has a run down of the reactions to this NY Times story about the not-so-new news about the Downing street memo's.
Apparently, what is new here is the fact that a US newspaper has confirmed that they are indeed real. From the memo's:
"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin."
The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment. Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present the American evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons. ...
...The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.
I don't know what is "new" here either. Regardless of the fact that i hadn't previously heard about these memo's, I still knew that there were no WMD's, and that this war had been planned. That's just kind of a given, isn't it?
I think the thing that surprised me the most about the memo's was that it appeared that Blair was apprehensive about the planned attack, wanted to get a second UN resolution, but Bush came across as bullying him into war.
Read it for yourself, and see what you think.
Shakespeare's sister has a run down of the reactions to this NY Times story about the not-so-new news about the Downing street memo's.
Apparently, what is new here is the fact that a US newspaper has confirmed that they are indeed real. From the memo's:
"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin."
The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment. Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present the American evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons. ...
...The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.
I don't know what is "new" here either. Regardless of the fact that i hadn't previously heard about these memo's, I still knew that there were no WMD's, and that this war had been planned. That's just kind of a given, isn't it?
I think the thing that surprised me the most about the memo's was that it appeared that Blair was apprehensive about the planned attack, wanted to get a second UN resolution, but Bush came across as bullying him into war.
Read it for yourself, and see what you think.