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.
“I first photocopied them to ensure they were on our paper and returned the originals, which were on government paper and therefore government property, to the source,” he added. [...]Why on an old fashioned typewriter? Why not a computer? I find that strange...
“It was these photocopies that I worked on, destroying them shortly before we went to press on Sept 17, 2004,” he added. “Before we destroyed them the legal desk secretary typed the text up on an old fashioned typewriter.”
“I first photocopied them to ensure they were on our paper and returned the originals, which were on government paper and therefore government property, to the source,” he added.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Backstory_Confirming_the_Downing_Street_0614.html
Not sure if that question was rhetorical but IMO they did it to give it that retro-ey secret agent man look to it. They wanted to make it look more authentic. They don't realize that they've stuck there foot in the gutter on this one.
I mean look at those documents. Its so obvious people are trying to pull it off as the real thing.
"A good reporter would have kept the originals locked up somewhere."
A 'good forger' would never have had any 'originals' to lock up.
A good forger should be locked up somewhere.
It's also in the Boston Globe:
Newly leaked memos add to debate on war motives
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/06/19/newly_leaked_memos_add_to_debate_on_war_motives/
"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, two British newspapers.
Smith told the AP he protected the identity of the source from whom he had obtained the documents by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals."
This is just amazing. Why is all the MSM accepting the memos as authentic, when there is NO way to authenticate them.
Anyone can type up memos on plain paper and claim they were memos from the CIA or whatever.
Exactly. If Michael Smith is lying, or if made an honest mistake in copying the memos, then they are fakes. But if he is both honest and accurate, they could well be fake nevertheless.
And our fine Democrat Senators want to impeach Bush on the basis of these memos, the authenticity of which is a huge questionmar, with a very high probability that they are complete fakes.
`Downing Street memo' gets Capitol Hill airing
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/06/18/2003259771
"Opponents of the war in Iraq on Thursday held an unofficial hearing on Capitol Hill to draw attention to a leaked British government document that they say proves their case that US President George W. Bush misled the public about his war plans in 2002 and distorted intelligence to support his policy.
In a jammed room in the basement of the Capitol, Representative John Conyers Jr., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, presided as witnesses asserted that the "Downing Street memo" -- minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top British security officials -- vindicated their view that Bush made the decision to topple former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein long before he has admitted.
"Thanks to the Downing Street minutes, we now know the truth," said Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years who helped organize a group of other retired intelligence officers to oppose the war."
Where are the rest of the Downing Street Memo?
I'd love to read the rest.
"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 "
I just figured out why. He learned from the Rather fiasco. If he tried to pass off fake memos as originals, someone would have been able to prove they were fakes.
This way we can't "prove" the originals themselves were fakes, but it sure leaves a huge questionmark, whether the originals even existed.
Well he aint doing a good job! Now he has to reveal the real memos from his source, whether he wants to or not.
No proof he ever had the originals, no proof he ever copied originals, no proof he ever returned originals.
Only proof we have is Smith admitted to having a secretary hand-type documents from other documents - source unknown.
The Times is not left wing. I don't read it all the time, but haven't personally observed that it was printing things just to embarrass Bush. The paper's ownership makes that unlikely I would have thought.
They were trying to avoid the Dan Rather fiasco, by making sure that people won't be able to prove the original originals as fakes, due to some technical knowledge the forgers didn't think of.
But note that for weeks, the MSM and the Dems were touting these memos, without any of them asking a single question about their authenticity.
The Times tried to pass them off as real by giving us the .pdfs. This is why its so stupid, that they went through the trouble of retyping them on an old typewriter.
And now they admit it... how stupid.
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