Bush and Blair: Lying About Iraq (Again)

In their recent joint press conference, Bush and Blair gave rehearsed answers to not-so-probing questions about the Downing Street Memo. (The Memo made clear that top officials in the Blair government knew Bush wanted to invade Iraq and was going to fix the evidence any way he had to in order to justify it.)

Rather bizarrely, both Bush and Blair made the same weak response: oh, no, the memo can't be right because we wnet to the UN AFTER it was written. Well, duh, you can hardly plan something in advance and then cynically go through the motions without, you know, planning something in advance. Going to the UN didn't uncercut the memo; in fact, it supported the truth of the memo, because as we now know the US went there with evidence that was flimsy at best (the British paper trail to back up a claim Hussein was buying nuclear material and the tubes that Colin Powell insisted were good for one thing only -- helping to build a bomb). In fact,the British paper trail was forged and 99.9% of the experts in the US and around the world who checked out the tubes before the US went public said they were absolutely NOT for that purpose.

So what gives? Why say that going to the UN proved the Downing Street Memo was wrong? Because repeating a lie over and over again is all you can do sometimes and pretty darn effective. And what were their other options?

Here's MORE PROOF Bush was lying: the Times of London has obtained more details showing that in 2002 Bush was going to invade Iraq and that ministers needed to come up with something, anything, to provide legal backing. Their plan? Why, go to the UN and get an ultimatum and hope Hussein unilaterally defied it.

It's taken the MSM six weeks to pay attention to the Downing Street Memo. (In fact, according to Salon, during the next 19 daily briefings after that memo came to light, only 2 out of nearly 1000 questions were about it.) It better not make that same mistake again.