I get to be right twice in the same week. After this post I'm going out for beer. Beer made in Texas by Americans dammit!
First Up Downing Street Memo 2.0 has been released. W had every intention of going after Saddam no matter what. I steadfastly maintained that he would try to finish his Father's work if elected and I think as time goes on I'll be proven right. But here its is:
NY Times
Bush Was Set on Path to War, British Memo Says
LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin."
Here's a little commentary from the Washington Posts chief political reporter Dan Balz from earlier todayDan Balz: The Times story follows up with more detail about the memo detailing the meeting between Bush and Blair in early 2003. There's no question about the authenticity of the memo, nor was there any doubt about the validity of the infamous Downing Street Memo, written in the summer of 2002.
Some of the information is not new and by now there is a pretty substantial body of evidence that the Bush administration was planning for war with Iraq for more than a year before the invasion.More
Now the funny thing is I expect to hear a big red So What? from certain sides of the blogosphere. Followed by numerous defenses of his actions. He lied to us to promote his agenda. He's done it since and he'll do it again. And what I have to say about it is this:
Dammit, I knew we should have sent in a second pretzel!
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