AP Drops the Ball In Interview With Blair On Downing Street Minutes
AP Drops the Ball In Interview With Blair On Downing Street Minutes
British Prime Minister Tony Blair responded to the Downing Street Minutes today. According to the AP, Blair said the document paints a distorted picture and insisted that the Iraq war was not predetermined by the United States. These are the key paragraphs of the story:
President Bush “wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD,” read the memo, seen by the AP. “But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
In the interview, Blair said raising such concerns was a natural part of any examination of the cause for war.
“The trouble with having a political discussion on the basis of things that are leaked is that they are always taken right out of context. Everything else is omitted from the discussion and you end up focusing on a specific document,” he said.
“It would be absolutely weird if, when the Iraq issue was on the agenda, you were not constantly raising issues, trying to work them out, get them in the right place,” he said.
So while the AP mentions that they obtained the Downing Street memo containing the “fixed around the policy” claim, apparently they didn’t get Blair to respond directly to that accusation. What does Prime Minister Blair say in response to the word “fixed”? Seems the most obvious question, and it apparently didn’t get asked or the answer wasn’t reported.
As for Blair’s argument that the memos were “taken right out of context,” he should feel free to release pre-war papers that prove his point. We’d love to read them.
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Yeah, show us those other docs man. This is just getting good.
June 29th, 2005 at 5:33 pmI’d love to see the hypothetic asked:
“Prime Minister, if the President of the United States came to you and told you that he needed England’s support to do something that the President perceived as vital, and in lending your support this would require the Prime Minister to stretch the truth if not lying about the truth, what were your response be?”
:-)
June 29th, 2005 at 5:36 pmBy PAISLEY DODDS, Associated Press Writer
isn’t that The Pickler’s pseudonym?
June 29th, 2005 at 5:48 pmWell, we might be able to get an MP to ask exactly that question during Prime Ministers Questions. Anyone in the UK want to give that a go?
My other point is that in the UK the phrase “taken right out of context” has a completely different British meaning that means “I’m trying to cover my arse and using the “I know more than you do” approch might do it.” or does it?
Z.
June 29th, 2005 at 6:10 pmBlair probably shared his other information with Rep. Robin Hayes of N.C.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/29/hayes.911/index.html
June 29th, 2005 at 6:22 pmGreat post! Blair MUST provide all documents; surely the GRAVITY of the charges requires it!
June 30th, 2005 at 3:14 amDuring the period of time between the war before the war, I’ve been wondering why our military would bomb WMDs. Can anyone explain it to me?
June 30th, 2005 at 3:53 amAt least one Iraqi was killed from the air strikes and there could have been – well you know what it would have been if US fighter planes had hit those WMDs…the ones Saddam had…the ones he was absolutely planning to share with the shadowy terrorists….the ones it was so
{{!URGENT!}} for our military to die for.
More on the Blair administration’s poodle style behaviour at http://dearkitty.modblog.com/?show=blogview&blog_id=661534
June 30th, 2005 at 7:50 amOnce again, the Sunday Times scooped the U.S. press on a big Iraq war story. “US ‘in talks with Iraq rebels,’” the London newspaper reported this weekend.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld quickly confirmed the story and downplayed it, suggesting it should not be surprising that U.S. officials were secretly negotiating with battlefield enemies. Rumsfeld and U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. George W. Casey Jr. made an important distinction: The U.S. was talking to Sunnis violently opposed to the occupation, not foreign fighters linked to Abu Musab Zarqawi.
But the Arab News in Saudi Arabia, among others, was surprised and didn’t make the distinction. “US Officials Held Talks With Terrorists” was their headline.
As with the Downing Street Memo, the Times was quicker than any American news organization to document the gap between rhetoric and reality of U.S. policy in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/28/AR2005062800442_pf.html
June 30th, 2005 at 8:58 amBLAIR CONFIRMS AUTHENTICITY OF DOWNING STREET MINUTES
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/590
June 30th, 2005 at 10:09 amThe real meaning of “fixed” in another memo authored by Matthew Rycroft.
June 30th, 2005 at 3:17 pmhttp://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/isc/isc_3_0004.pdf
Great job Darth.
Steed, I’m not saving an article to my computer. I feel that if the article you are presenting is authentic a link would be a sufficient way to present it. How do I know that you didn’t create a word document and call it factual?
Darth offers contact information for verification.
July 1st, 2005 at 11:37 pmSusan, You’ve never heard of the Hutton Inquiry????? It is indeed an authentic document. Go to the main Hutton Inquiry website if you have any doubt.
July 2nd, 2005 at 1:28 pm[...] The Downing Street minutes: here. Comments » [...]
January 3rd, 2007 at 7:51 am