One of the given rationales for attacking Iraq was that Saddam was linked to the 9-11 hijackers through a claim that Mohammad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in April 2001 before the attacks. The supposed Prague meeting was advanced by former CIA Director Jim Woolsey, using evidence obtained from the Czech government. But according to the FBI, Atta was in Virginia Beach at the time. The Czech government later backed off its claims, but Vice President Cheney stuck to it. In December 2001, Cheney said:

“Well, what we now have that’s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that–it’s been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.” [NBC, Meet the Press, 12/9/01]

Now we know that through a recently-disclosed British paper, the Bush administration had doubts about whether the Prague meeting did in fact occur. In the 3/18/02 memo, former British Ambassador Christopher Meyer said Paul Wolfowitz told him “there might be doubt about the alleged meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, and Iraqi intelligence (did we, he asked, know anything more about this meeting?).”

The new evidence indicates that Cheney had reason to believe that his claims of a “pretty well confirmed” meeting were in fact not confirmed at all.

Unsurprisingly, right-wing bloggers have largely ignored the Downing Street memo. Up to today, even those who have addressed the revelations — namely Andrew Sullivan and Powerline — are left unimpressed by the findings. In fact, Powerline goes so far as to claim that the memo “tells us nothing new about pre-war intelligence on Iraq, and is anything but a bombshell.”

One of Powerline’s key arguments, however, rests on the supposed ambiguous meaning behind a shocking sentence in the memo: “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” Powerline says that “whatever the British note-taker meant by the sentence he obviously didn’t mean that there was any doubt on the part of British intelligence or Blair’s government that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.”

But today we released the British Briefing Papers which clearly shows the British had serious doubts about whether Iraq had WMD. In the Iraq Options Paper, the Britsh government acknowledged “our intelligence is poor” about Iraq WMD.

The right-wing’s blind faith now just looks like willful ignorance.

At his press conference today, Scott McClellan tried to make the case that the security situation in Iraq is getting better:

QUESTION: Scott, you said that the president is talking with Talibani, talked about the security situation. Did they express their concerns about the rising level of civilian casualties and the deaths of American troops?

MCCLELLAN: I think the president and Talibani — actually, some of the numbers have been coming down, but they’re still are difficulties that remain.

The facts don’t back him up.

May was the deadliest month for U.S. soldiers since January:

The overall U.S. death toll in Iraq last month – counting active-duty as well as mobilized reserve forces – was 80. That is the highest for any month since January…The 80 deaths compare with a monthly average of 70 over the previous 12 months.

Deaths among Iraqi civilians were also up sharply in May:

Iraqi civilian deaths in May increased by nearly one third from the previous month, a Health Ministry official said…Dr Sabah al-Araji, of the Health Ministry, said 434 civilians were killed in May, up from 299 killed in April.

It’s hard to find a solution when you can’t admit you have a problem.

Paul Wolfowitz is typically described as “the chief architect of the Iraq war.” The chief architect, according one of the British papers released today, acknowledged before the war that the threat of Iraqi weapons had not progressed enough to justify an attack, but decided to hype the evidence anyways because he thought the American public would buy it.

In a memo written about a meeting he had with then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Ambassador Christopher Meyer wrote that Wolfowitz de-emphasized the importance of the WMD argument for attacking Iraq. Meyer said, “[Wolfowitz] took a slightly different position from others in the Administration, who were focused on Saddam’s capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction Wolfowitz thought it indispensable to spell out in detail Saddam’s barbarism.”

Wolfowitz admitted in May 2003 that the WMD justification for attacking Iraq was merely pretense. In a Vanity Fair interview, Wolfowitz said: “For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”

Despite knowing the threat of Iraqi WMDs was not imminent, Wolfowitz hyped the threat to sell the war:

Wolfowitz: “Iraq presents a case of direct threat to the security of the United States and our allies and a key to the future of one of the most important regions in the world The simple truth is, disarming Iraq and fighting the war on terror are not merely related; disarming Iraq’s arsenal of terror is a crucial part of winning the war on terror.” [Wolfowitz testimony, House Budget Committee, 2/27/03]

Wolfowitz: “Disarming Iraq’s arsenal of terror is a crucial part of winning the war on terror.” [Speech to Commonwealth Club, 12/6/02]

As noted previously on ThinkProgress, the American media had failed to report on the British Briefing Papers — covered by the British media last September — that showed that the British felt the pre-war evidence for attacking Iraq was weak and that the U.S. lacked a plan to address the post-war situation. Using the Downing Street Minutes to bring light to these Briefing Papers, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus wrote a front-page story this weekend calling attention to the charges in those documents.

In a headline entitled, “Memo: U.S. Lacked Full Postwar Iraq Plan,” Pincus uncovered a British memo warning of post-war instability that would arise because the Bush administration was unrealistic about the post-war phase. A number of the Papers in the Pincus article are attached below. As one of the Papers warns, the U.S. had no plans for “what happens on the morning after [attacking Iraq].”

The main thrust of the British Briefing Papers certainly focused on the Bush administration’s failure to plan, but there’s another key point in the Papers which Pincus chose not to highlight, a point which meshes well with the revelations in the Downing Street Minutes. As you know, the Downing Street Minutes said the Bush administration “fixed” the intelligence around its policy of attacking Iraq. The British Briefing Papers lend further credence to this point.

British Knew Iraqi WMD Were Not a Threat: “There is no greater threat now that [Saddam] will use WMD than there has been in recent years, so continuing containment is an option.” [Iraq: Options Paper]

Evidence Did Not Show Much Advance In Iraq’s Weapons Programs: “Even the best survey of Iraq’s WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on [the] nuclear, missile or CW/BW fronts: the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.” [Ricketts Paper, 3/22/02]

Evidence Was Thin on Iraq/Al Qaeda Ties: “US is scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al [Qaida] is so far frankly unconvincing.” [Ricketts Paper, 3/22/02]

“No Credible Evidence” On Iraq/Al Qaeda Link: “There has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL and Al Qaida.” [Straw Paper, 3/25/02]

Wolfowitz Knew Supposed Iraq/Al Qaeda Link Was Weak: Wolfowitz said that “there might be doubt about the alleged meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on 9/11, and Iraqi intelligence (did we, he asked, know anything more about this meeting?).” [Meyer Paper, 3/18/02]

The full British Briefing Papers have been attached below. When reading them, keep in mind that these Papers were written approximately a full year before the invasion of Iraq. The Papers present a shockingly accurate forecast of what has transpired in the years since, and suggest the Bush administration chose to ignore the advice of our key ally when it came to dealing with Iraq.

British Iraq Options Paper
Manning Paper
Meyer Paper
Ricketts Paper
Straw Paper
British Legal Background Paper