"And answer me this is Michael Smith a anti-war Bush hater?
Is he?"
I've no idea. I don't personally know him you understand. I don't habitually read his writing. I'm really not contesting his personal character or opinions.
"The fact remains you cannot show 1 as in ONE small bit of legitimate evidence that show these alleged documents are authentic"
What evidence would convince you? I've told you what convinces me, the point that you have not addressed in any way or offered any kind of alternative explanation. If the documents were fabricated, Tony Blair and the rest of the government would be shouting their outrage from every rooftop and demanding resignations at the Times (owned by the renowned Communist Rupert Murdoch of course...). They are not doing this, I infer that the documents are genuine.
Actually as is often the case I get side tracked on the issues. Just a personal demon I suppose, the truth is I really don't care if these memos are authentic since I believe they show nothing damning in the real sense of the word.
They only contain information about planning for the removal of a know terrorist supporter Saddam Hussein. They show the very real concern both the USA and British had that Saddam would indeed use his WMD against our troops if we did remove him from power.
What they don't show is that Saddam was in violation of 16 UN resolutions (ultimately 17 resolutions) and the Ceasefire agreement which halted the Gulf War. It also doesn't show that Saddam was firing on both British and American aircraft daily, aircraft flying in support of the "No Fly Zone" resolution keeping Hussein from slathering more Iraqi Kurds and Shia muslims.
They aren't even new information since this was all reported in 2002 by a British Newspaper.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,759158,00.html
What they are is a source for political propagandists to take info out of context and misquote. And we still don't really even know if they are legitimate. Anyway that's a portion of my problem with this issue I've enclosed a link to a article which explains if much better than I can.
http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200506060801.asp