More British bad news for Chimpy!

19 Comments

1. 

   markinsanfran on June 11, 2005 at 9:58 pm

   This new memo is now on Page 1 of the Washington post!

   Looks like they don’t want to be caught with their pants around their ankles again.

   • 

     thumper on June 11, 2005 at 11:40 pm

     he’s been cheneyed.  hehe

2. 

   Man Eegee on June 11, 2005 at 10:15 pm

   From the WaPo article

   In a section titled “Benefits/Risks,” the July 21 memo states, “Even with a legal base and a viable military plan, we would still need to ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks.”

   Saying that “we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective,” the memo’s authors point out, “A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise.” The authors add, “As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden.”

   :snip:

   The Blair government, unlike its U.S. counterparts, always doubted that coalition troops would be uniformly welcomed, and sought U.N. participation in the invasion in part to set the stage for an international occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, said British officials interviewed recently. London was aware that the State Department had studied how to deal with an invasion’s aftermath. But the British government was “shocked,” in the words of one official, “when we discovered that in the postwar period the Defense Department would still be running the show.”

3. 

   cburke on June 11, 2005 at 10:47 pm

   MSNBC is talking about it online: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8184988/

   Nothing yet on CNN or Fox frontpages.

   • 

     markinsanfran on June 11, 2005 at 10:50 pm

     NYT and LA Times don’t seem to have it either. You snooze, you lose!

4. 

   Chamonix1 on June 11, 2005 at 11:01 pm

   If this doesn’t bring him down…nothing will. Now we know why Conyers has been pushing so hard with the signatures. This is surely going to be the “Tipping Point” for Bush and his evil lies. Are we really ready for a President Cheney? or Hastert? I say Impeach all the Republican Liars. Throw all their Asses out of Washington. This is looking really big to me. Looks like there is stuff in the NY Times also. He’s goin down, down, down. Let’s change the name of FrenchToast to BushToast

   • 

     subtropolis on June 11, 2005 at 11:15 pm

     What do you have against French Toast?

   • 

     markinsanfran on June 12, 2005 at 12:05 am

     or even more so. I say we have his and her’s impeachments for Cheney and his bitch, Bush.

     • 

       Anomalous on June 12, 2005 at 12:35 pm

       During an interview, Sy Hersch (I believe) said that Mrs. Cheney was complicit as well. I understand that she and her husband conduct monthly “think tank” type dinners at their residence, which makes me wonder what role she plays in the scheme of things.

   • 

     diane101 on June 12, 2005 at 12:16 am

     I found a really good article the other day
     http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050609/bolton_the_fixer.php
     about the Cheney/Bolton connection, so there we go with Cheney.
     I have been saying for weeks now, he is going down.  No doubt about it.  It will still take awhile yet, but it will happen.  
     We really need to push impeachment. sign petitions, push senators, congress, media.  
     The answer to the problems lie at the top of the heap….Bush.

     • 

       debraz on June 12, 2005 at 3:17 pm

       Bolton and Perle were the two “outers”, who exposed the UK’s commitment to go to war with the U.S.  Bolton called a UK talk show, most likely an attempt on behalf of the Administration to stiffen the UK’s resolve.  We know that Jack Straw was pissed.

       “The Foreign Secretary flew to America to interrupt the holiday of the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell.  ‘We understand’ Jack Straw complained ‘you’ve outed us.’   He said:  “The British government had yet to prepare public opinion.”

   • 

     GC on June 12, 2005 at 7:55 am

     At this point I’ll be euphoric if only Bush gets Cheneyed. The others will be impotent by then. How could they NOT have predicted the shit would eventually hit the fan? Arrogance, middle name of them all.

     I teach, therefore am off soon. I’m looking for
     DSM/Impeach Bush activities for the summer. (Way to relax, GC:)

5. 

   subtropolis on June 11, 2005 at 11:12 pm

   Pretty decent coverage by Walter Pincus. And that “U.S. Fatalities” box on the side… darn Librul press! Fairly nasty shot of Mr. Blair, i might add. “enlarge photo”? Er, no thanks.

   I really hate it when i read stuff like: Bush said he had read “characterizations of the memo…” Characterizations my ass. They just want to leave an out so they don’t get pinned down on anything specific. And i saw that shitbag ‘answering’ a question about the minutes by whining about the leaker (oh, and that the press would stoop to printing it).

   What’s really sad is that i read “containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost slightly over $30 billion,” as $300 billion and thought, ‘hmm, that’s a lot’ and prepared to move on. What is it they’re spending a week again?

6. 

   Londonbear on June 11, 2005 at 11:16 pm

   A much fuller version of the document is available now on the Sunday Times site at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1648758_1,00.html

   Note this ia not the full version as they have ommitted the last page and transcribed the document to protect the source. Such documents invatiably have coded “watermarks” to identify the recipient of the document even from photcopies by encoding spaces differently for each copy. A .pdf version would similarly identify the Sunday Times’ source.

   • 

     diane101 on June 12, 2005 at 12:24 am

     I just read the whole thing and this is good/bad depending on your perspective.  It’s all in there, all the evidence I think…..

   • 

     Sven Triloqvist on June 12, 2005 at 3:28 am

     That ‘coding’ info is very interesting – hadn’t heard of it before.

     Do I understand correctly when you say that it is the recipient who is identified by the coding – and thus it is a method of tracking leaks?

     Is it an automated encoding process?

     • 

       Londonbear on June 12, 2005 at 4:16 am

       What these systems do is encode each copy with a unique “signature” so you can tell which copy has been leaked. Once you identify the signature you can see who was sent that particular copy.

       There are various methods of doing this and they all depend on producing subtly different print-outs. You may have a clear code like “4/25” in the header or footer of each page but also the coding extends through the document. Often this may involve a tiny offset of a character. If I give an example of five copies you will get the idea.

       This is number one in a run of five.
       This is number one in a run of five.
       This is number one in a run of five.
       This is number one in a run of five.
       This is number one in a run of five.  

       So if you allocate numbers 1-5 to the vowels in alphabetical order you will see you can uniquely identify each row. Obviously the real thing is less obtrusive than boldening the code letters.  

       • 

         Sven Triloqvist on June 12, 2005 at 4:29 am

         Thanks for the info.

         Obviously Cut & Paste might not remove the encoding without going to plain text or some other format stripping filetype.

         And even so, the use of certain ‘innocent’ phrase variations would not be detectable unless you had two copies to compare.

         Thus the publishing of visual copies of original leaked documents as evidence carries risks for the leaker. This clearly raises the threshold for leakers – which explains the paraphrasing one sees.

7. 

   sybil on June 12, 2005 at 8:08 am

   in Slate, October 2002.

   Cheney, the Dove, lists the reasons for not going into
   Baghdad after Gulf War I.

   http://slate.msn.com/id/2072609/

   He was right when he was a Dove, what made him change?