Posted on 06/19/2005 6:53:54 AM PDT by mabelkitty
The media and the Leftists have had a field day with the Downing Street memos that they claim imply that the Bush administration lied about the intelligence on WMD in order to justify the attack on Iraq. Despite the fact that none of the memos actually say that, none of them quote any officials or any documents, and that the text of the memos show that the British government worried about the deployment of WMD by Saddam against Coalition troops, Kuwait and/or Israel, the meme continues to survive.
Until tonight, however, no one questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by the Times of London. That has now changed, as Times reporter Michael Smith admitted that the memos he used are not originals, but retyped copies (via LGF and CQ reader Sapper):
The eight memos — all labeled "secret" or "confidential" — were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times. Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.
The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.
Advance Release Chapter of Ray McGovern's New Book
Christopher Meyer Memo
David Manning Memo
Iraq Legal Background
Iraq Options Paper
Jack Straw Memo
P F Ricketts Memo
Yahoo: "Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals."
MSNBC: "On the advice of the Telegraph’s lawyers, the paper had a secretary retype the documents verbatim on separate paper—then returned the originals to his source.
Yahoo Link: http://tinyurl.com/9pj87
MSNBC Link: http://tinyurl.com/dw25g (Page 3)
without any originals, a retyped memo wont have much weight
Oh shiite, these links don't work for some reason. Ill see what I can do.
Another Dan Rather memo
These people surely must live on another planet!
Smells like a Bill Burkett CBS News Dan Rather moment to me. That sentence is buried in the middle of the story. Destroyed the orininals my ass. There were no originals. It's a fiction piece.
Our piece of crap Gannett local paper had this on the front page this morning.
There is no reason one should be compelled to respond to a liar.
If people would be morally compelled to respond to such things, no good work would get done, as all the liars in the world would be casting about, fishing for all manner of story, taking up time and airwaves with whole cloth fabrications, just to try to bring focus on falsehoods and misleading images, along the line of "just when did you stop beating your wife." "It's great to get denials like that into the news," such liars and their accomplices will say.
It serves the liars' interests, but not justice.
HF
I think you've nailed em on this one! Good job!
" There is no reason one should be compelled to respond to a liar."
I agree. But I can't imagine that they would not.
I can't take the credit. I saw it on another blog's comment section. I read so many I don't remember which one.
Do they have a Kinkos in London?
Anyway here they are for everybody's reference, except for the "Downing Street Minutes" one which is definitely a typed version (the other ones, you'd think were real).
As usual, do what FReepers do best to memos...
Iraq Legal Background
David Manning Memo
Christopher Meyer Memo
Iraq Options Paper
P F Ricketts Memo
Jack Straw Memo
Why didn't Smith simply blot out the name?
These are very likely forged documents, as everyone is stating.
From the story:
Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.
You've read my mind. As you can see from the .pdfs I posted, the retyped memos look like crap.
Did you scroll down far enough on the DU post you linked to the DUer that said that the "other" pictures of Abu Ghraib and the videos show out troops "raping children in front of their parents..."
Talk about spreading falsehoods...does anyone really believe that IF that happened (before I saw what the idiots like Lynndie England did, I wouldn't have believe troops would DO anything), that THOSE would have been made public LONG before now, with the dems screaming from the tops of their lungs????
By way of comparison as to the actual appearance of Downing Street documents, below is a link to the legal advice given to Tony Blair by Lord Goldsmith prior to the Iraq War:
http://www.number-10.gov.uk/files/pdf/Iraq%20Resolution%201441.pdf
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