The secret Downing Street memo
The Sunday Times [London]
May 1, 2005
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DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft Date: 23 July 2002 S 195 02 cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER’S MEETING, 23 JULY Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq. This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents. John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam’s regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based. C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. 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 NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action… The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force…
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It’s been a while since the Downing Street memo was leaked. As you can see, it came to light after the 2004 election. It was the first really "hard" piece of data that said the truth in an undeniable way. We’d heard it from Paul O’Niell, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson – but there it was was in black and white – "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy…"
Cheney saw this in much more sort of classical security and balance of power terms. He wanted to send a message. Some of his staff told me, and this was something we didn’t know before, that he was looking for a demonstration effect. The idea you sort of knock one bad guy down to send a message to others. He was actually more worried about North Korea and Iran as constituting this nexus he always talked about between hostile state, WMD and terrorists who would use them. But those were not attractive military options, and he hoped to deter them with this kind of war. I mean, the other surprising thing that we didn’t know before, is that despite his public comments, Cheney was quite ambivalent about the war. He thought it was a close call. Once he made the call, and once the president made the call more importantly, he would go and make it a 100 percent case in public. But he was worried it wouldn’t turn out well…
Well, it didn’t ["turn out well"]. In the Downing Street memo, what Gellman says is explicit ["But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force."]. They were afraid to go after Bin Laden in Pakistan, afraid to go to war with Iran or North Korea, afraid to look paralyzed [which they were], so they decided to hit Iraq because they knew they could win [and get some oil and an ally in the Middle East]. It was a fear-based decision. And they had to make up a justification. Later in the memo, they mention an alternative to making up their WMD/Al Qaeda story:
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The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
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Either make up a reason like WMD’s and Terrorist connections or make up or provoke an Iraqi incident that gave us an excuse to invade ["initiated by an Iraqi casus belli"].
And then throw in "The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." And who do we guess was the impatient one? This is where we’ve been for eight years, bad decisions cascading, leading to other bad decisions; decisions that needed to be made [economy] being avoided; decisions about personal power and being re-elected instead of decisions about the governing of the country; decisions about how things fit an ideology and not the situations at hand.
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