P.S. What is the new evidence that the war was inevitable?  
What is "The Downing Street Memo"?

Also see pre-war FAQ, "Was the War Inevitable?"  and see "PS US Politics" and "Where are the WMD?" and
'WMD/CIA Leak" for details on the Scooter Libby trial

Frank Rich, Times author of The Greatest Story Ever Sold, includes a very helpful appendix in his book and on line at frankrich.com. This includes a timeline of what the administration was saying publicly and what it knew privately.

A new twist came on May 1, 2005, on the eve of Tony Blair's re-election.  Strong evidence surfaced which showed that the war was inevitable.  A secret memo from July 2002 was written by the head of M16 intelligence in the UK.  Labeled "secret and strictly personal--UK eyes only" the memo came soon after a meeting between Blair, Bush, and their staffs.  Students of the Iraq War will remember that it began in March 2003.

This "Downing Street Memo" (based on minutes from the July 23, 2002 meeting) was, for many, the "smoking gun" of what skeptics had already presumed:  that the war was planned well ahead of time.  The memo was written at Downing Street by British National Security aide Matthew Rycroft, based on his notes of July 2002.  One source drawing attention to the memo is: downingstreetmemo.com

Afterdowningstreet.org focuses on "the lies" and urges impeachment of the President. 
One of their links is to all of the memoes.

According to the British memo, "C [UK intelligence leader] 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" which became apparent after the war began.

As part of the memo, a prediction of war in January 2003 was made, which ended up being what the President may have wanted, if the UN and inspectors hadn't slowed him down. The timeline toward war was to begin "30 days before the US Congressional elections."  Cheney's late August 2002 speech pre-empted this plan.  

To the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, according to the memo, "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 neighbors, 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 weapon inspectors.  This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force...The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors."

Conclusions were that "we should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action.  but we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take nay firm decisions." 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1593607-523,00.html

Reaction to the memo was for weeks a loud lack of denial from Britain.  The British did not deny its authenticity. In the U.S., President spokesman urged Americans to consider it unimportant and "nothing new" but then denied its premise. Before the war, the President continued to say "war is a last resort" and "I have no plans on my desk."  Could Bush have only been bluffing before the war?  For weeks, most of the American media and public reacted slowly and indifferently, reported the front page Tribune story of May 17.  See Pre-war FAQs for many more details.

Back in the fall of 2002, Bush seemed to have no intentions of going before the UN.  In October, many in Congress voted to support the President to force weapons inspectors return.

Many Democrats expressed shock at the documents. For example, critic John Conyers (MI) of the House Judiciary Committee said, "While the president...was telling the citizens and the Congress that they had no intention to start a war with Iraq, they were working very close with Tony Blair and the British leadership at making this a foregone conclusion."  Conyers was part of hearings which, according to the Times, "they say proves their case that President Bush misled the public about his war plans in 2002 and distorted intelligence to support his policy."  Frequent critic of pre-war intelligence, 27 year CIA veteran analyst, added, "Thanks to the Downing Street minutes, we now know the truth."  The mother of a soldier killed feels the memo "confirms what I already suspected:  the leadership of this country rushed us into an illegal invasion of another sovereign country on prefabricated and cherry-picked intelligence."

Scott McClellan, the President's chief spokesman, attacked the messenger not the message:  Conyers was labeled as "an individual who voted against the war in the first place and is simply trying to rehash old debates that have already been addressed.  And our focus is not on the past.  It's on the future and working to make sure we succeed in Iraq."

Representative Charles Rangel (NY) urged Congress to launch an official inquiry "to determine whether president Bush misled the nation about the reasons for toppling Saddam Hussein."

Walter Pincus of the Washington Post took nearly two weeks to react to the story.  He focused on the ideas that intelligence was "being fixed around the policy." This memo marked the first time that the British believed "Bush had decided to go to war in mid-2002."

Even before the memo was made public, Blair was called Tony B-Liar" by those examining "his factually challenged case for war," wrote Post commentary E.J. Dionne Jr. 

"Staying What Course?" was Paul Krugman's May 16, 2005 contribution to the Times.  He opens, "Is there any point, now that November's election is behind us, in revisiting the history of the Iraq War?  Yes:  any path out of the quagmire will be blocked by people who call their opponents weak on national security, and portray themselves as tough guys who will keep America safe.  So it's important to understand how the tough guys made America weak."

Krugman refers to the Downing Street Memo (see details of the memo) which confirms "what apologist for the war have always denied:  for Bush administration cooked up a case for a war it wanted."  The memo included that the war would be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD but the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The Times writer asks, "Why did the administration want to invade Iraq, when, as the memo noted, 'the case was thin' and Saddam's 'WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea , or Iran."  Iraq was perceived as a soft target; a quick victory there, its domestic political advantage aside, could serve as a demonstration of American military might, one that would shock and awe the word. But the Iraq war has, instead, demonstrated the limits of American power, and emboldened our potential enemies.  Why should Kim Jong Il fear us, when we can't even secure the road from Baghdad to the airport.  At this point, the echoes of Vietnam are unmistakable.  Reports from the recent offensive near the Syrian border sound just like those from a 1960s search-and-destroy mission, body count and all."

For more on Krugman and other Op-ed pieces, see P.S. Op-ed.

Only six weeks after the memo became public did it really grab the mainstream public attention in the US.   Blair was visiting the White House in early June when a reporter asked about the infamous memo. President Bush replied that before the war he worked hard to find a peaceful solution:  War is "the last option.  We worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully."

Asked if intelligence was being fixed before the war, the June 7, 2005 Bush/Blair press conference included these responses:  From Bush:  "There's nothing farther from the truth...Both of us didn't want to sue our military."  From Blair:  "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all." 

The Downing Street memos led some Democrats to begin whispering the "I" word, impeachment.  Hurricane Katrina, of August 2005, and the NSA spying of December 2005, added to these calls.  See much more on 2006 US Politics.

The Times article summarized some key policies in speeches leading up to the war by concluding their June 8 report, "The White House has always insisted that Mr. Bush did not make the decision to invade Iraq until after...Powell present...to the UN...on Feb. 5, 2003, which relied heavily on claims, now discredited, that Iraq had illicit weapons.  but as early as Nov. 21, 2001, Mr. Bush directed...Rumsfeld to begin a review of what could be done to oust Mr. Hussein."  One source for this last point is Bob Woodward's book. 

One detailed analysis is "The Memo Comes in From the Cold" in the Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/08/BL2005060801519_pf.html

Another analysis came from veteran reporter and Iraq war author Todd Purdum, in his Times piece, "A Peephole to the War Room:  British Documents Shed Light on Bush Team's State of Mind."  Purdum feels the documents "aren't so shocking" because we knew in 2002 that Bush wanted to topple Saddam "by any means necessary".  Powell also warned publicly and privately that the US was ill-prepared for postwar Iraq. The memo is "bittersweet" when read with hindsight by war opponents.  Purdum quoted war critic Congressman Conyers as saying the memos are important "unless the British intelligence service can't take accurate notes of a meeting."  

But, Purdum urges, "The memos are not the Dead Sea Scrolls. There has been ample evidence for many months, and even years, that top Bush administration figures saw war as inevitable by the summer of 2002."  Rice in July 2002 toward a New Yorker writer that the decision to invade has, in essence, already been made.  Purdum wonder why the memos don't elaborate on the idea that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy", however, he does not point out that the President continually told the world that he had not made up his mind and that he would try for a peaceful solution and work through the UN. 

Purdum concludes his analyses thusly:  In the summer of 2004 the Senate Intelligence Committee issued "a scathing, unanimous report that 'most of the major key judgment' in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estate [on WMD, used by the administration and Congress] were 'either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting.'" By prior agreement, the committee did not focus on how politicians used this faulty intelligence, and this study is bogged down.  But Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) said, "'The committee has an obligation to answer these questions and the American people deserve answers.  Only then can we provide a full and complete accounting of the mistakes leading up to the war...and what changes are necessary to fix them.'"

The Times of London   released a total of seven memos by mid-June. The second most covered warned that "a post-war occupation...could lead to protracted and costly nation-building exercise" in which "Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden...Little thought" had been given to postwar.  As students of the war might recall, a lengthy State Department study about reconstruction was ignored by the Pentagon. The British responded that there was "significant post-war planning" in the 8 months from when the memo was written until the war began.

How did other US allies see the threat of Iraq?  Israel saw Iraq as much less of a threat during the '90s.  According to Scott Ritter's speech at the Commonwealth Club of California.  Iraq had been "threat #1" to Israel but was dropped to #6 by 1998.  This intelligence was shared with Ritter as a UN weapon inspector.  Since Israel remained quiet in the lead up to war, this would make more sense. Ritter's latest book is Iraq Confidential.  Here is a lengthy conversation Ritter had with journalist Seymour Hirsh.

Another book, released in January 2006, was by New York Times columnist James Risen.  Originally known as the author of the  December 2005 article breaking the NSA spy story. Risen's book, State of War:  The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush administration, examines the roll of the CIA before the war. Risen suggests that the "groupthink" within the top levels of government had everyone believing that Saddam had WMD, despite not having seen much evidence. His interviews of many in the CIA lead him to conclude that the intel doubting WMD never made it to the President.  Thus, the President did not lie.

Frank Rich, Times author of The Greatest Story Ever Sold, includes a very helpful appendix in his book and on line at frankrich.com. This includes a timeline of what the administration was saying publicly and what it knew privately.

The Man Who Sold The War" highlights the work of James Rendon.  An American media consultant, Rendon was hired before the war by the administration.  He established and named the Iraqi National Congress in the '90s.  A lengthyRolling Stone article by James Bamford of December 2005, explains how the administration knew that some of the allegations on WMD were wrong. 

The uranium claim was doubted in 2002, reported the New York Times on Jan. 18, 2006.  According to a secret memo of March 4, 2002, declassified by the State Department, it was "unlikely" that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger.  This was a year before the infamous "16 words" of the President's State of the Union Address.  We also learned for the first time that in addition to Joseph Wilson, a four-star general, Fulford, was sent to investigate the claims.  The doubts were based on the facts that:  
--France controlled the uranium industry and could block any sale;
--Niger would be endangering needed foreign aid with any sale;
--the logistics of a secret transfer seemed highly unlikely

See " WMD/CIA Leak" for details on the Scooter Libby trial

Responded an unnamed Bush official, "The president has said the intelligence was wrong, and we have reorganized our intelligent agencies so we can do better in the future."

The Chicago Tribune judged the case for war in a fall 2005 series of nine editorials.  The conclusions were printed on Dec. 28. In addition to the obvious and emphasized case by the administration on WMD and Al Qaeda, the paper also focused on: --Iraq rebuffs the world --Hussein's rope-a-dope --Waging war on terror --Reform in the Middle East --The Butcher of Baghdad --Iraqis liberated

They predicted that the editorials would "distress the smug and self-assured--those who have unquestioningly supported, or opposed, this war...The administration didn't advance its arguments with equal emphasis.  Neither, though, did its case rely solely on Iraq's alleged illicit weapons...Evaluation all nine arguments lets each of us decide which one we now find persuasive or empty, and whether President Bush tried to mislead us...We now know that the white House explained some but not enough of the ambiguities embedded in  those agency's conclusions.  By not stressing what wasn't known as much as what was, the White House wound up exaggerating allegation that proved dead wrong.  Those flawed assertions are central to the charge that the president lied.  Such accusation, though, can unfairly conflate three issues:  the strength of the case Bush argued before the war, his refusal to delay it launch in march 2003 and his administration's  failure to better anticipate the chaos that would follow...We do not see the conspiracy to mislead that many critics allege."

The Chicago paper concludes their opening comments, "Seventeen days before the war, this page reluctantly urged the president to launch it.  We said that every earnest tool of diplomacy...had failed to improve the worlds' security, stop the butcher-or rationalize years of UN inaction.  We contended that Saddam Hussein, not George W. Bush, had demanded this conflict.  Many people of patriotism and integrity disagreed with us and still do.  But the totality of what we know now--what this matrix chronicles--affirms for us our verdict of March 2, 2003.  

The paper then detailed their conclusions of the nine causes in three categories:
--what the White House said
--What we know today: and
--The verdict

On biological and chemical weapons: "Many, although not all, of the...assertions about WMD have proven flat-out wrong.  What illicit weaponry searchers uncovered didn't begin to square with the magnitude of the toxic armory US officials had described before the war...There was no need...to rely on risky intelligence...In putting so much emphasis on illicit weaponry, the White House advanced its most provocative, least verifiable case for war when others would have sufficed."

On quest for nukes:  "Four intel studies from 1997-2000 concurred that "If Iraq acquired a significant quantity of fissile material through foreign assistance it could have a crude nuclear weapon within a year.'  Claims that Iraq sought uranium [from Niger] and special [aluminum] tubes for processing nuclear material appear discredited."

On waging the war on terror:  "The assertion that Hussein was 'harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror' overstated what we know today...the argument was exaggerated."

On reform in the Middle East:  "The notion that invading Iraq would provoke political tremors in a region long ruled by despots is the Bush administration's most successful prewar prediction to date." 

On Al Qaeda:  "No compelling evidence ties Iraq to [9/11] as the White House implied.  Nor is there proof linking Al Qaeda in a significant way to the final years of Hussein's regime.  by stripping its rhetoric of the ambiguity present in the intel date, the White House exaggerated this argument for war." 

On Iraqis liberated:  The "peculiar notion" that the Arab world was "ready to embrace representative government...was correct....Iraqis [have] embraced democracy."

In February 2006 a former leading CIA official, writing a Foreign Affairs, article, Intelligence Policy and the War in Iraq." Paul Pillar wrote of the inevitability of the war and the misuse of intelligence and said that the White House "went to war without requesting--and evidently without being influenced by--any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."   http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/10/iraq.intelligence/index.html

He added, "What is most remarkable....is not that [intelligence] got things wrong and thereby misled policymakers; it is that it played so small a role in one of the most important US policy decision in decades." 

The top CIA official was especially critical of the false links made between al Qaeda and Saddam, an allegation which no intelligence analysis supported. Pillar further wrote, "This meant selectively adducing date--'cherry picking'--rather than using the intelligence community' own analytic judgments."  Political pressure was often not directly stated but more subtle.  "Intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions that had already been made."   Officers were repeatedly asked the same questions. Those who resisted were accused of "trying to sabotage the president's policies." Analysts began to "sugarcoat" their conclusions. 

Further, Pillar said that the administration constantly pressed for more date to support the purported link with Al Qaeda. This is not totally consistent with the findings of the presidential commission chaired by Robb and Silberman, which found that CIA analysts had not been pressed to change their views.  The Senate phase of the investigation, on how administration officials used intelligence, has not been completed.  

The Pillar criticism is not new but it was the first time such a high ranking CIA official, in power before and during the war, had spoken on the record.  As the Tribune summarized, "the man responsible for coordinating the intelligence community's collective view on Iraq direly challenged the notion that the prevailing wisdom within the nations' spay services supported the decision to invade."

Following Pillar was more evidence in late February 2006 of the fake Iraqi general, put up by the INC, led by Chalabi, at right, before the war. This alleged Iraqi general, exiled to Beirut, claimed that Al Qaeda pilots trained in Iraq.  The truth was that this man was a Colonel and the actual General was still in Iraq. General Jamal al-Ghurairy never left Iraq and was later shocked to discover he was being impersonated.  Frontline and the New York Times were given "an exclusive interview.  Jack Fairweather, a journalist embedded with the UK for six weeks during the war, had interviewed INC leader Chalabi.  Fairweather's spring 2006 article in Mother Jones is "Heroes in Error".

Pillar came up again in March 2006 when it was revealed that Saddam's foreign minister was a paid informant for the CIA, via the French.  Naji Sabri received over $100,000.  He had given mixed account of weapons to the French before the war. He reported that Iraq had no nuclear weapons but was "aggressively and covertly" seeking to develop them. Tenet reported that Sabri only reported the Iraq was "dabbling" with biological weapons, but had no "real weapons program.  However the October 2002 NIE said Iraq had "reconstituted its nuclear weapons program" and had "produced some germ weapons."  Sabri was closer to the American estimate on chemical weapons. We are reminded that Pillar wrote in Foreign Affairs, "intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions that had already been made." 

Bush and Blair were set for war before Powell's February 2003 speech to the UN, alleges a February 2006 book, Lawless World. (Chicago Tribune, 2/11/06). Bush suggested painting a US spy plane in UN colors to see whether Saddam would shoot it down.  The war was "penciled in" for March 10.

Blair was told the US would go ahead with or without a second UN resolution.  Blair told the President he was "solidly with" him.  The author, Britain Philippe Sands, is an international law professor.  He used memos and documents for the above allegations.  A spokesman for Blair replied that the Prime Minister did not make up his mind to go to war until after authorized by Parliament two days before the invasion. 

Following the Downing Street Memo and the Pillar article, came the "war was inevitable" breakthrough story of late March 2006.  I am labeling these revelations as "Downing Street II".  Blair and Bush met in late January 2003, three months before the war began.  Bush told the Prime Minister that he had "penciled in" a starting date for the war of March 10, and that the results of the UN and of weapons inspectors would not deter him from war. 

The front page story in the New York Times of March 27, ("Bush was set on path to war, memo by British adviser says") uses notes from a 5-page "extremely sensitive" memoranda from the top British foreign policy adviser that "Bush was set on war."  For the months leading to the US going to war, President Bush had told us that war was "a last resort" and Saddam had choices to make to avoid war. However, as the Times article reports, "But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable...determined to invade...without the second [UN] resolution, or even if international arms inspects failed to find [WMD]."  Chief British foreign policy adviser David Manning had written at the time, "The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March.  This was when the bombing would begin."
Also see "Is the War Inevitable?" FAQs, details about pre-war, written pre-war. 

Another came from Richard Cohen in the Washington Post:  "Bush Wanted War."

The "Inevitable" news of April came as Libby claimed that Cheney told him Bush approved Libby leaking previously classified information to Judith Miller of the Times.  (See "US Politics '06" FAQ) Only Bush, Cheney, and Libby knew about the "instant declassification" which was not officially declassified for 10 days.  The information Libby portrayed as certain and "key judgments" was already in doubt by several senior officials.  Libby evidently quietly told Miller that "a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium." Miller did not write about this new leaked information. The NIE included an annex which stated that the State Department intelligence officials consider the uranium allegation "highly dubious." As the Times reported, "long after [Powell] had concluded the intelligence was faulty," Bush and Cheney and Libby "were still promoting it."  Powell did not use the "uranium from Africa" line from the State of the Union in his UN speech a few weeks later. 

Colin Powell was not the only official in doubt.  So was CIA director Tenet.  As a former White House official told the Times, "Remember, this was taking place in the middle of the White House-CIA war" in which each was trying to blame the other for failure to find WMD.  

Powell was interview by Tavis Smiley on NPR on Easter of 2006.  The subtle criticism of Rumsfeld, had in the past days had been asked to resign by six former generals (see "Should/Will Rumsfeld Resign?" FAQ section).  Powell feels there were not enough troops and we shouldn't have argued for months about whether there was an insurgency or not.  However, Powell is still the good soldiers, adding, "We tried diplomacy and it didn't work.  I supported going to war....The intelligence was wrong, but that doesn't mean we were misled."

"The Intelligence Business" was the lead Times editorial of May 7, 2006.  The paper is running out of patience with the lack of Congressional investigations into the "fairy tales [the Bush administration] told about Saddam Hussein's weapons.  Republican leaders keep saying it is a waste of time to find out whether President Bush and other top officials deliberately misled the world."  A Senate committee issued a repot "on how bad the information was, but put off until after the 2004 election the question of whether the administration deliberately hyped the evidence."

The Phase 2 investigations are divided into five parts:
1.  "Did officials' public statement reflect the actual intelligence?
2.  Why did the government fail to anticipate the postwar disaster...?
3.  Were there actually any WMD?
4.  Was the Pentagon's mini-CIA a proper and legal operation?
5.  Did any of the disinformation provided by the Iraqi exile leader Chalabi get into any 'intelligence product?'"

The editorial continues, "Beyond dragging out the process further, the intent, obviously, is to suggest that Mr. Bush said the same things that Democratic senator and others did.  That has no significance.  They did not decide to have a war and had access only to the sanitized intelligence fed to them by the administration...And it was the intelligence business that Mr. Rumsfeld now pretends not to run that used Mr. Chalabi's myths in an attempt to rebut the skeptical State Department and make dubious information seem more reliable."

In the fall of 2006 came the release of David Corn's book, Hubris. He tells of the "story of the tubes" going to the press, like Judy Miller, from an informer and then being quoted by the administration to prove their point. When Miller wrote that "most of the key experts believe" she was mistaken.

Bob Woodward's fall 2006 book State of Denial examines the inevitability of the war. According to the Times review of Woodward's book, Woodward suggests "as others have, that our adventure in Iraq had less to do with the promotion of democracy and more to do with the president's relationship with his father. Bush wanted to outdo his dad by taking down the tyrant his old man had left standing."

British pre-war intelligence was back in the news in December when their key UN negotiator spoke out. Carne Ross revealed Blair must have known that Saddam did not have WMD because the UK never assessed that Iraq posed any threat.

Also in December 2006 came the Times lead editorial about looking into the intelligence on Iraq before the war. The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Roberts of Kansas "promised to deliver a report on whether Mr. Bush and his team pressured the agencies to cherry-pick or hype evidence--or lied outright to Americans." But Roberts has the aim of delaying and "killing" the investigation. The finish the job will "require heaving lifting on the most important section, comparing the statements of administration officials to what they knew about the intelligence." (12/17/06)

Also see "Editorials Post-War FAQ" and "Wilson/Libby/WMD" FAQ section,, for details on the Scooter Libby trial

In February 2007 we were reminded about how the Pentagon misrepresented the pre-war intelligence, specifically claiming a strong relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda. Douglas Feith was on the hot seat, for politics rising above intelligence, according to a report from the Pentagon, first requested back in the fall of 2005. Amazingly, this is the first major review to rebuke Feith's "alternative intelligence." . The Pentagon's inspector general feels Feith's group, the Office of Special Plans, made the case for war with "reporting of dubious quality or reliability." Feith defended himself in a Post opinion piece on Valentine's Day, entitled, "Tough Questions We Were Right To Ask."

One top source was the INC, the Iraqi Natonal Congress. As careful readers of this web site will recall, the INC also fed stories of WMD and training of terrorists to Cheney and the press. The Pentagon sub-group was "predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda." For example, he concluded that the two had a "mature symbiotic relationship" though the intelligence community thought the relationship was "evolving". Feith produced and disseminated the intelligence, much of his conflicting with the consensus of the intelligence community. Feith would present his findings to the CIA with different information than to the White House. Much of it was wrong and politicized. One famous accusation was the 9/11 lead hijackers Ata met in Prague with an Iraqi agent. This charge was bandied about but was determined to be obviously false by the FBI and others. Feith was tasked and coordinated by Rumsfeld and Cheney to find "the goods" on Saddam, when the CIA had its doubts.

Senators debated the significance of this internal Pentagon conclusion. Chairman Levin feels the finding "are about as damning a statement as one can hear...I think they sought this kind of intelligence. They made it clear they wanted any kinds of possible connections, no matter how skimpy, and they got it...The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship as manipulated by high-ranking officials" in Defense "to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq." Further, Sen. Rockefeller will examine whether Feith violated the 1947 National Security Act. The Senate Intelligence Committee was never informed of this secret work at the Pentagon.

Feith defended himself by saying he did nothing illegal or unauthorized, and feels repudiated from "the smears." He claimed, "In presenting [the information] I was not endorsing its substance." Cheney defended himself as late as January 2004. Though the Pentagon and CIA has disavowed Feith's conclusion, Cheney felt that Feith's finding were "the best source of information" on alleged links between Saddam and al-Qaeda.

Also see the pre-war FAQ, for lengthy analysis and history, "Was the War Inevitable?" and "Links to Al Qaeda?" Of course, the 9/11 commission discredited any links of Saddam to 9/11 and concluded that there was "no evidence" that Iraq and al Qaeda "ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship."

"The Powell Rule", tries to avoid the humiliation of Powell in February 2003 when he spoke before the UN. First described publicly in early 2007, analysts must now "show their work" which led to their conclusions.

In May 2007 (5/6/07) Times columnist Frank Rich wondered if Rice is "hiding the smoking gun" on pre-war intelligence. Sec. of State Rice was in the news again in December 2007 with the release of a new book, Condoleeza Rice: An American Life. The author was interviewed on Bob Edwards Weekend on NPR.

Prewar warning were ignored, concluded a Senate committee report released in late May 2007. Two Republicans voted with the Democrats in support of the report. The prewar assessment from US spy agencies warned that "rogue ex-regime elements could forge an alliance with existing terrorist organizations or act independently to wage guerrilla warfare against the new government or coalition forces." It further predicted that Al Qaeda would "accelerate its operational tempo and increase terrorist attacks" and could increase support for extremist "as a result of Muslim outrage over US action." Iran could be strengthened. Bush countered that he "weighed the risks and rewards" of his decision.

A CIA report in August 2007 was originally quashed by director Porter Goss. Current director Hayden feels the CIA inspector general's report only revisits "ground that is already plowed." Responds the Times editorial, "We could not disagree more."

September brought reports from from Spanish leader about averting war. Saddam was considering, as was rumored at the time, a buyout of $1 billion to go into exile, reported the Spanish daily El Pais, according to the Chicago Tribune. Hussein wanted to take WMD information with him. Jose Maria Aznar, Spanish leader at the time, met with Bush four weeks before the war started. "The time has come to get rid of him..We have to get him right now...In tow weeks we will be ready militarily. We'll be in Baghdad by the end of March...my patience has run out." Bush told Aznar then. The US President talked about a quick war, securing Iraq's oil wells, and enlisting the Saudi to help bring the petroleum to market. In response to giving more time to the weapons inspectors led by Blix, Bush replied, "This is like Chinese water torture. We have to put a stop to it." This report comes from a transcript prepared at the time by the Spanish Ambassador.

Curveball was identified on 60 Minutes in November 2007. See more on Curveball at "Where are the WMD?" FAQ.

What were the pressures on Powell at the UN? Powell's pre-war speech in early 2003 was seen as the key to pushing US foreign policy toward war. Powell's assistant, Lawrence Wilkerson, was interviewed in January 2008, by NPR's Terry Gross. The top State Department officials details the pressures to use faulty intelligence, especially from Cheney and his office. For example, Cheney kept re-inserting the Czech/Atta story and Powell kept taking it out.

How many "false statements" were made by the administration in the lead up to war? Including Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, and 2-3 top assistants, a new study of January 2008 counts 935 false statements from 9/11 to the start of the war. The story was picked up by the AP, NPR's "Orchestrated Deception" and others. The study concludes that the statements were "part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses. The layout of the information and computer tool is different and unique but all the documents had been previously published. In the Times story, reporter John Cushman writes, "Muckrakers may find browsing the site reminiscent of what Richard M. Nixon used to dismissively call 'wallowing in Watergate.'" The database shows that even after the invasion, when a consensus formed that the intelligence was flawed, "administration officials occasionally suggested that the weapons might still be found." The story reminds us that in 2005 Bush admitted that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong" but that "it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power.'

The two groups who completed the study were the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism. The Times article, 10 paragraphs on page 10, opens, "Students of how the Bush administration led the nation into the Iraq war can now go online" at www.publicintegrity.org.

A White House spokesman had no comment on the study but said, "The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgement of intelligence agencies around the world."

The full study is by the Center for Public Integrity, which charts the statements by month.

One of the false statements before the war came from the British dossier of September 2002. In mid-February 2008, we learned more about this suspect document. An early version did not include claims about WMD being launched within 45 minutes of an order being given. Rather, this claim was inserted only later "on the orders of Mr. Blair's press advisers, who were seeking," according to the New York Times story, "to strengthen the case for invasion." The government denies this accusation. An opposition British lawmaker feels that "a press official should never have been drafting a document that ended up being used as the justification for going to war." A second document from February 2003, just before the war began, became known as "the dodgy dossier" and was plagiarized. Last year Hans Blix, chief pre-war weapons inspector, said that he believed Blair had "replaced question marks with exclamation marks" in intelligence documents to justify the war.

Also see more on Britain's role before the war.

Douglas Feith, with an insider book released in March 2008, provides the first insider information from the Pentagon that the war was seen as "inevitable" in the December of 2002. The "momentous comment" that "war is inevitable" from Bush came before the weapons inspects reported on their initial findings. His new book is War and Decision.

Feith also blasts the State Department and Colin Powell, as well as Gen. Tommy Franks and Amb. Paul Bremer. Military reporters Ricks and DeYoung of the Post label the book a "massive [900 page], score-settling work" from the under Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld would be pleased. The report continues, "Although Feith acknowledges 'serious errors' in intelligence, policy and operational plans...he blames then on others outside the Pentagon and notes that 'even the best planning' cannot avoid all problems in wartime. While he says the decision to invade was correct, he judges that the task of creating a viable and stable Iraqi government was poorly executed and remains 'grimly incomplete.'" Powell, Feith asserts, never expressed opposition to the invasion. Feith left the administration in 2005 and now teaches at Georgetown. Last year he was investigated by the Pentagon's inspector general. His prewar intel assessments about al Qaeda connects were deemed "inconsistent" and "inappropriate" but not illegal.

"Bush's War" from PBS Frontline, was released in March 2008. The video is in two parts, supplemented with numerous maps, video clips, interviews, and timelines.

The lull of a few month was broken in late May with the new book by former White House spokesman Scott McClellan. He tells of the "political propoganda" used to sell the "rush" to an "unecessary war", while public opinion was "manipulated." From the man who knew Bush since his Texas days, the former spokesman alleges that he was deceived by Rove and Cheney. McClellan "wacked Bush", reported Politico.

John Nichols, of The Nation, was among those with commentary. Much of the press was hesitant to say directly, "Bush lied." Some wanted to debate what the definition of lying really is.

In July of 2008 the Army released the official history of the war. It asked what went wrong and was self-critical. The report covered the years 2003 and 2004. NPR's "Talk of the Nation" had an in-depth discussion of the new report.

I read only one story in 2009 which reflected on new material concerning the war's inevitability. Jon Meacham, in his "Top of the Week" Newsweek column, writes in the fall of the "Obama-Dubya Connection." Bush Sr. was prepared to go to war in the Persian Gulf (1991), even even the UN vote had gone against him. "If the first President Bush was more willing to use force than is sometimes remembered, his son was more open to diplomacy, especially in his last years in office, than is vitually ever remembered."

The first 2010 inevitability story came out of Britain in January. Former PM Tony Blair, away from the spotlight for 2 1/2 years, defended his legacy on the Iraq War in six hours of broadcasts. He would take the same steps again. "If there was any possibility that he could develop WMD, we would stop him...The critical thing after Sept. 11 is that the calculus of risk changed." There will be other testimony in this lengthy inquiry. Blair is much vilified in Britain for his role in the war.

In February at the inquiry, Blair's former cabinet minister Clare Short claimed that Blair lied about the war. She alleged that Blair "conned" her and deceived his cabinet. Short resigned soon after the war began. Blair claimed his lawyers told him the war would be legal. Would have have vetoed any and all UN resolutions? Blair told his cabinet yes. But Short thinks France could have voted in favor of a resolution short of war, such as allowing the weapons inspectors more time.