The New York Times reported yesterday on a confidential January 2003 memo that showed President Bush “was determined to invade Iraq” even without a second UN resolution. Yesterday on Hardball, the source of that memo, British scholar Philippe Sands, revealed the existence of yet another revealing pre-war memo:
SANDS: Another memo which records a conversation between Colin Powell and his counterpart in the United Kingdom, Jack Straw, which makes it clear that in Colin Powell’s eyes if there wasn’t enough evidence for a second Security Council resolution, then there wasn’t enough evidence to justify the U.S. going it alone.
As Tiny Revolution notes, a May 2003 UK Guardian article reported on a transcript of a meeting between Powell and Straw in which the two discussed their doubts that WMDs existed in Iraq. The paper later agreed to retract portions of the story after Straw “made it clear that no such meeting took place.” It seems the Guardian was right after all.
Full transcript below:
SANDS: Well, there’s now no shred of doubt and there’s been no denial, you will have noticed, as to the contents of the memorandum that the decision was indeed taken in January before Colin Powell went.
In fact, one other aspect that I’ve described in my book, “Lawless World” that hasn’t emerged so much in the New York Times memo is another memo which records a conversation between Colin Powell and his counterpart in the United Kingdom, Jack Straw, which makes it clear that in Colin Powell’s eyes if there wasn’t enough evidence for a second Security Council resolution, then there wasn’t enough evidence to justify the U.S. going it alone.
So Colin Powell was spot on, but it seems he was overridden by a president and others in the administration who were absolutely committed to taking the United States to war, tragically in erroneous circumstances, irrespective of what the inspectors found.