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.
In other words, other than an anti-American reporter trying to throw mud at the US, this is a non-story.
"I haven't seen anyone post the quote from Blair, but you may be referring to the Guardian newspaper's assertion that the Foreign office said the docs were authentic. Who in the Foreign office said it is not mentioned."
Using "The Foreign Office said" indicates that it is an official on-the-record comment from a Foreign Office spokesman. I imagine the American media would use "The White House said.." in a similar manner.
Note that the confirmation that the documents were genuine is from September of last year. Like I said before, this is in no way a new story.
Several people have noted the sentance in the AP story that says that Smith 'destroyed the originals'. I think that was not correct.
What Smith said (someone posted a link with a direct quote from him earlier on) was that he was given the originals by his source, photocopied them and returned them to the source who returned them to their original place. He then transcribed the documents and destroyed the photocopies.
I think the AP story has confused that part. Just to clarify what he said, make of it what you will.
But the burden of proof is not on us to prove the documents fake. It is on the reporter to prove they are accurate. And since he destroyed the original copies, he cannot.
End of this story.
One would assume the AP would have corrected this more than minor oversight, then! It is an interestig question...why WOULD Smith destroy the originals? But why would he have destroyed the photo copies, either? Presumably, any identifying information could easily be blacked out with a piece of masking tape or a black marker...so why take all that trouble to "transcribe" them, thereby putting their authenticity in doubt? I simply don't understand. And why do the PDF's look as if the memo has been run through a photocopier a dozen times? What was the point of aging the transcripts? Why not just straight up identify the memo as a transcript, and explain that to protect a source, the memo was transcribed, then checked against the document with said source, who would have verifyed its correctness? A lot of common sense things this reporter missed, wouldn't you say? In any case, it is quite interesting...but I am of the mind that the memos do probably represent whatever those minutes actually said, including the "intelligence fixed around the policy". I just don't get the leftwingers salivation over it. "intel fixed around" only means "intel gathered/arranged in support of" a policy. The policy was regime change, the ultimate achievement of the goals of that policy was the execution of the Iraq war. Why wouldn't you gather intelligence to support a policy? Gathering your facts and evidence to prove your case is certainly expected and acceptable, isn't it? Well, it used to be! LOL!
Yes, I agree with everything in your post.
Amazing. The MSM has gone off the deep end. Fake memos, fake stories, more fake memos......and a chick named Katie that nobody can stand to work with.....that dresses like a Singapore lady of the night.
Not when you're dealing with Barking MoonbatsTM!
Not necessarily true, there. It might turn out that those specific allegations are false, but he has other skeletons in his closet which he needs to hide.
Full Disclosure: I agree with your conclusion--I read "Unfit for Command"--but your logic still is not watertight.
Does anyone know if Tony Blair or someone else with authority from Britain has commented on the authenticity of the memos?
[Anti-moonbat sarcasm torpedo ARMED. FIRE!!]
Yes, exactly!
This proves the lefties DO learn from their mistakes.
An old fashioned typewriter.
The only thing that got through to them from the Dan Rather / TANG debacle was "we were caught cause we didn't use AN OLD FASHIONED TYPEWRITER."
So for the next round of incriminating documents, they just HAD to involve a OLD FASHIONED TYPEWRITER.
It's all so clear, now, isn't it?
Cheers!
You are apparently projecting...
Try it like this :
Why some people feel the need to try to MAKE fabrications against the president I'm not sure, just makes them look like Deaniacs and barking moonbats, who have to undermine the US at all costs.
BTW, why didn't NAMBLA go to the mat to defend Michael Jackson?
You think you can fool us with your altered copy? I know yours is a fraud because I have the original...somewhere...
A message from Capitol Hill Blue. . .
Conned big time
By DOUG THOMPSON
Jul 9, 2003, 18:05
Damn, I hate it when I've been had and I've been had big time.
http://tinyurl.com/bapas
Essentially, it's a slang word that is coming to be recognized because of it's widespread (and incorrect) use. It's kind of like the word "ain't." It was used so much that they put it in the dictionary.
"Why some people feel the need to try to MAKE fabrications against the president I'm not sure, just makes them look like Deaniacs and barking moonbats, who have to undermine the US at all costs."
As I said previously, these documents are nothing to do with 'the president'. They are internal British government documents, leaked to a British journalist and printed in British newspapers. If they were aimed at President Bush, I'm sure you would've got the story at the same time as we did, 8 months ago.
The "memo" proved both Blair and Bush worried about WMD use on the first day.
That has not gotten equal time. But then again, the MSM has never been good at analyzing the information. Just pontificating on it.
DK
But of course the questionable authenticity of the memo raises its own set of very interesting and important questions.
Oh ya! Begs the question, does it say what it says or what they want it too say?
My Spin-O-meter is twitching.
no one, including blair, has denied the information in the dsm was wrong.
also, none of the principals mentioned in the documents has said on the record that the information is wrong.
let's reconnect to reality. there is a lot of information already made public from principals (i.e. those directly involved) that bush wanted this war practically from day #1 of his presidency. the downing documents just provide additional documentation that he told this to blair.
for those who don't know, dearlove as chief of mi-6 is more than just the equivalent of the director of the cia. he's that plus director of dia plus director of nsa. he does not brief or talk with low ranking people. he starts at these levels and goes up.
funny too, dearlove hasn't denied the veracity of the documents either.
face it: every reason the bush and his administration gave for going to war not only has been proven wrong, it was known to be wrong at the time. if not, why do the reasons keep changing?
dan rather used questionable documents. he did NOT use questionable information. there is NO proof that bush fulfilled his national guard obligation and lots of circumstantial information that he went awol to the point of desertion. if not, where's the proof he fulfilled it? also, as a former air force officer (and one time student pilot trainee), i am curious as to why it took him 2 years to complete a 1 year program?
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