The Downing Street memo (or the Downing Street Minutes), sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the smoking gun memo, is the note of a 23 July 2002 secret meeting of senior British government, defence and intelligence figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct reference to classified United States policy of the time. The name refers to 10 Downing Street, the residence of the British prime minister.
The memo, written by Downing Street foreign policy aide Matthew Rycroft, recorded the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) as expressing the view following his recent visit to Washington that "[George W.] Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It quoted Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as saying it was clear that Bush had "made up his mind" to take military action but that "the case was thin." Straw also noted that Iraq retained "WMD capability" and that "Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN." The military asked about the consequences "if Saddam used WMD on day one," posing Kuwait or Israel as potential targets. Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith warned that justifying the invasion on legal grounds would be difficult. However, the meeting took place several months before the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, the resolution eventually used as the legal basis for the invasion of Iraq. UNR687 also provided a pre-existing basis, as it required Iraq to divest itself of "100%" of all WMD capacity, which the Memo agreed it had not.
A copy of the memo was obtained by British journalist Michael Smith and published in The Sunday Times in May 2005, on the eve of British elections. Smith stated that the memo was equivalent to the Pentagon Papers which exposed American intentions in the Vietnam War and alleged the American media did not report more about it due to a perceived bias towards support for the war. Though its authenticity has never been seriously challenged, the British and American governments have stated that the contents do not accurately reflect their official policy positions at the time.
Introduction The memo was first published in The Sunday Times on 1 May 2005, during the last days of the UK general election campaign.
It went largely unremarked in the U.S. press at first, but was heavily covered in progressive blogs such as those on Daily Kos, because of a remark attributed to Richard Dearlove (then MI6 head) that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed [by the U.S.] around the policy" of removing Saddam Hussein from power, which was interpreted to show that US intelligence on Iraq prior to the war was deliberately falsified, rather than simply mistaken.
As this issue began to be covered by American media (Los Angeles Times on 12 May 2005, The Washington Post on 13 May 2005), two other main allegations stemming from the memo arose: that the UN weapons inspection process was manipulated to provide a legal pretext for the war, and that pre-war air strikes were deliberately ramped up in order to soften Iraqi infrastructure in preparation for war, prior to the October U.S. Senate vote permitting the invasion.
Some elements of the U.S. media have portrayed the document as faked or fraudulent, and Dana Perino referred in her daily White House press briefing on 4 December 2008 to the fact that the Bush administration has "debunked" the document previously. The British have tacitly validated its authenticity (as when Tony Blair replied to a press conference question by saying "that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations.")
A group of 131 members of Congress led by John Conyers, repeatedly requested that President George W. Bush respond to the contents of the document. A resolution of inquiry was filed by Representative Barbara Lee, which would request that the President and the State Department turn over all relevant information with regard to US policy towards Iraq. The resolution had 70 co-sponsors.
Outline The minutes were meant to be kept confidential and were headed "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." It deals with the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War, and comes at a point at which it becomes clear to those attending, that US President George W. Bush intended to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force.
The minutes run through the military options and then consider the political strategy in which an appeal for support from the international community and from domestic opinion would be most likely to be positively received. It suggests that an ultimatum for Saddam to allow back United Nations weapons inspectors be issued, and that this would help to make the use of force legal. Tony Blair is quoted as saying that the British public would support regime change in the right political context.
The most controversial paragraph is a report of a recent visit to Washington by head of the Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove (known in official terminology as 'C'):
The British analysis of US policy is also stated elsewhere in the minutes:
The main sections covering the ultimatum are:
The minutes also outlines potential risks of an invasion of Iraq:
Copies of the minutes were sent to: Secretary of State for Defence Geoff Hoon, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jack Straw, Attorney General for England and Wales Lord Goldsmith, Cabinet Secretary Sir Richard Wilson, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee John Scarlett, Director of the Government Communications Headquarters Francis Richards, Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Michael Boyce, Head of the Secret Intelligence Service Richard Dearlove, Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell, Downing Street Director of Government Relations Sally Morgan, and Downing Street Director of Communications and Strategy Alastair Campbell.
Reaction
Proponents of an inquiry In the United States, proponents of a formal congressional inquiry say that the minutes, along with testimonies from credible witnesses, shed sufficient doubt on the actions of the Bush administration to warrant a formal inquiry. In particular, they say that the minutes indicate that the administration was determined to go to war with Iraq prior to considerations of legality, and with full knowledge that, at best, "the case was thin." And furthermore that they selected and exaggerated intelligence so as to confirm their policy and developed a plan to manipulate public opinion. Also, proponents say that the contents (such as "Military action was now seen as inevitable.") and the date of the memo, 23 July 2002, contradicts the official White House position that President Bush did not finally decide to carry out the invasion of March 2003 until after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the administration's case to the United Nations Security Council, in a speech on 5 February 2003. They also say that the minutes are dated at a time when Bush stated that "we haven't made any decisions on Iraq, but all options are on the table."
Another paragraph has been taken to show that Geoff Hoon believed the timing of the war was intended to influence American elections:
It has been said that some of those present at the meeting believed that Iraq might possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) "capacity". However, the minutes explicitly state that the capability was less than that of Libya, Iran, and North Korea, and that Saddam was not threatening his neighbours.
U.S. Congress On 5 May 2005, Democratic Congressman John Conyers sent a letter to President Bush signed by 89 of his colleagues demanding an explanation of the "troubling revelations" in the memo. No specific White House response to the letter was ever made publicly. In response to the Bush administration's refusal to answer the congressional delegation's questions, Conyers et al. considered sending a fact-finding mission to the UK.
Conyers initially requested 100,000 signatures from citizens (a petition) to request that President Bush answer the questions in his letter. The letter began accumulating between 20,000 and 25,000 signatures a day, boosted by progressive political action group MoveOn.org, which joined the campaign on 9 June. By 13 June 2005, the letter had received over 540,000 signatures from citizens, and more congressmen had signed on, bringing the total to 94 – three days later, over 100 congressmen had signed the letter, including then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
On 16 June 2005, Conyers presided over an unofficial hearing or forum on the Downing Street memo in a basement room in the Capitol where notable opponents of the Iraq War Joseph C. Wilson, Ray McGovern and Cindy Sheehan, among others, testified.
Internet
Smintheus at Daily Kos and MYDD first addressed the memo on the night of 30 April 2005. By the next morning the document was elevated to a major story on the Daily Kos, where Democratic Congressman John Conyers learned of its existence.
A website, www.downingstreetmemo.com, was created on 13 May, "to fill a void left by the American mainstream media," and continues with its primary aim "to provide a resource for anyone who wants to understand the meaning and context of these documents as they relate to the Bush administration's case for war."
On 30 May 2005, in a "blogswarm" fueled by the memo, hundreds of blogs joined together to form the Big Brass Alliance in support of After Downing Street.
On 1 June 2005 a targeted media campaign called 'Awaken the Mainstream Media' began jointly at Daily Kos and downingstreetmemo.com. Every day it listed new contact information for three news outlets, so that readers could contact them to urge them to provide better coverage of the issues around the Downing Street memo and other released documents.
Pundits On 18 May, conservative pundit and former Reagan administration advisor Paul Craig Roberts wrote an article calling for Bush's impeachment for lying to Congress about the case for war.
On 31 May, liberal consumer advocate and former presidential hopeful Ralph Nader wrote an article on ZNet calling for Bush and Cheney's impeachment under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution. Also on that day, he and Kevin Zeese authored an op-ed for The Boston Globe to support the call for impeachment against Bush, citing the memo as part of the evidence that the possibility of deliberate deception by the administration should be investigated.
On 30 January 2006, an article entitled The Impeachment of George W. Bush, written by Elizabeth Holtzman (Rep. NY-D 1973–1981, member of the House Judiciary Committee that held impeachment hearings of President Richard Nixon) was published by the left-wing periodical The Nation. The article makes specific references to the Downing Street memo.
Political groups A coalition of American groups known as After Downing Street, co-founded by a group of longtime progressive and/or Democratic Party activists,afterdowningstreet.org, Co-Founders. Retrieved 28 March 2007 called on Congress to file a Resolution of Inquiry, the first necessary legal step to determine whether President Bush had committed impeachable offences. The formal Resolution of Inquiry request was written by Boston constitutional attorney John C. Bonifaz. The request states the constitutional grounds for impeachment:
Democrats.com raised one thousand dollars, offered as a reward to anyone who could get George Bush to answer the following question "Yes" or "No:
In addition a number of lesser prizes were offered for lesser responses, down to a $100 for posing the question clearly to Bush.
News coverage