An Online Chat With Michael Smith

Two top-secret British documents that were leaked to the press recently suggest that the Bush administration “fixed” intelligence about Iraq and that actions at the United Nations were designed to give legal cover to British Prime Minister Tony Blair before an invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.

Michael Smith, a reporter for the Sunday Times of London, has led the coverage, starting with his report of the so-called Downing Street Memo on May 1.

Albany, N.Y.: I have a short and sweet question for you.

Yesterday this paper, The Washington Post wrote and editorial about Iraq and mentioned the Downing Street memo and said the memo revealed absolutely nothing new and added nothing to the debate.

What say you?

Michael Smith: The same as I said earlier in other answers. This is the documentary evidence from within the U.K. equivalent of an NSC meeting. It is one thing saying well The Post wrote this back then from our sources, but it is a very different thing to have the documents from the heart of government that prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The other thing we keep coming back to is the build-up of concern over the whole business of being in Iraq, losing soldiers every day. These memos not only convince the ordinary man or woman in the street they strike a chord.

That editorial said it couldn’t speak for its news desk who keep going with this story. Whoever wrote it was entitled to their opinion. But they were flat wrong!

Michael Smith: I think it is clear from the documents themselves that the whole venture was widely viewed as being highly dubious with no certainty of what would come out of it. The administration ensured that it only got the answers it wanted. But they either ignored the advice they were getting on the likely cost or managed to filter it out with this highly pressurized regime of come up with the right answers, or we will be on your back to do so all the time. That is what resulted in the National Intelligence Estimated of October 2002 which was designed by George Tenet to get a questioning Congress off the President’s back. Everyone has heard about the British “dodgy” dossiers but the actual intelligence analysis, the so-called JIC report, on which the main dossier was based spoke mostly of weapons programmes, i.e. production of the agent that would be put into weapons, rather than actual stockpiled weapons. The closest it came to saying there were actually any weapons was to say there “may be” 1.5 tons of VX gas, a conclusion that went back to the conclusions of the UNSCOM weapons inspectors in 1998. The CIA’s October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on the other hand, said there were probably up to 500 tons of chemical weapons in Iraq. That gives you a feel of the kind of distortion that was going on. But as for the idea that he had very active programmes going on, well everyone, including the French and the Russians, thought that. There was a kind of group think that no-one was challenging. Long answer but I hope it’s helpful.

Michael Smith: Firstly, I think the leaks were regarded as politically motivated. Secondly there was a feeling of well we said that way back when. Then of course as the pressure mounted from the outside, there was a defensive attitude. “We have said this before, if you the reader didn’t listen well what can we do”, seemed to be the attitude. I don’t know if you have this expression over there, but we say someone “wants to have their cake and eat it”. That’s what that response reeks of. Either it was politically motivated and therefore not true or it was published before by the U.S. newspapers and was true, it can’t be both can it?

The attitude they have taken is just flat wrong, to borrow an expression from the White House spokesman on the Downing St Memo.

It is one thing for the New York Times or The Washington Post to say that we were being told that the intelligence was being fixed by sources inside the CIA or Pentagon or the NSC and quite another to have documentary confirmation in the form of the minutes of a key meeting with the Prime Minister’s office. Think of it this way, all the key players were there. This was the equivalent of an NSC meeting, with the President, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, George Tenet, and Tommy Franks all there. They say the evidence against Saddam Hussein is thin, the Brits think regime change is illegal under international law so we are going to have to go to the U.N. to get an ultimatum, not as a way of averting war but as an excuse to make the war legal, and oh by the way we aren’t preparing for what happens after and no-one has the faintest idea what Iraq will be like after a war. Not reportable, are you kidding me?

Michael Smith: I think Blair will go although I personally think Bush is much more at risk because there is an unstoppable public feeling against the continued presence of U.S. soldiers as targets for insurgents. The polls and the public pressure are not going Bush’s way. There is no doubt in my mind that the administration lied and distorted the truth, one Congress begins to realise the scale of it, Bush could be in serious trouble.

Michael Smith: I think in journalistic terms we need to go back to the Pentagon papers, in terms of a U.S. context you have to look at the answer I gave earlier comparing that meeting to an NSC meeting. That is its significance, that is its equivalent. It is highly damning and some of the self-serving nonsense from people who should know better in some, and it is now only some, of the U.S. media is frankly depressing.

Michael Smith: There are number of people asking about fixed and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed and as for the reports that said this was one British official. Pleeeaaassee! This was the head of MI6. How much authority do you want the man to have? He has just been to Washington, he has just talked to George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq. Fixed means the same here as it does there. More leaks? I do hope so and the more Blair and Bush lie to try to get themselves off the hook the more likely it is that we will get more leaks.