Book Casts Doubt on Case for War

[cal04]

(snip)
Sands, 45, is a professor of international law and a founding member of the Matrix law office in London, where Cherie Blair, the prime minister's wife, also works. His book, initially published last year, is not primarily about the decision to go to war in Iraq. Rather, it examines a range of issues in which, he argues, the Bush administration, with Britain's complicity, has undermined the "rules-based" international system built largely by the United States and Britain after World War II. Sands said there was no doubt about the authenticity of the documents he quotes. "They have not been denied, and they cannot be denied," he told the Los Angeles Times this week. Britain's Channel 4 News said it had seen the document outside Britain.

(snip)
The channel's Jon Snow presented excerpts in a broadcast last weekend. The text, in Sands' view, shows that U.S. and British leaders had determined six weeks before the invasion to launch a war to disarm Hussein, even without explicit U.N. approval. According to the secret notes of the meeting, as paraphrased in Sands' book and then quoted directly by Channel 4, Bush told Blair that "the U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colors. If Saddam fires on them, he would be in breach" of U.N. resolutions. Bush also was quoted as saying an Iraqi defector might make a public presentation about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that there was a small possibility the Iraqi leader would be assassinated.

(snip)
When asked about the allegations in Washington last week, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "Look, this is ground that has been plowed over and over and over again. The president and others couldn't have been more clear where we stood at that point in time with respect to seeking a diplomatic solution versus a military alternative."

Sands disagreed with the assertion that Blair's conduct had already been investigated, adding that the documents now coming out could form the basis of an impeachment motion against the British prime minister. "He misled Parliament as to the state of his knowledge (about Hussein's weapons), and he misled Parliament as to the extent to which he had or had not committed to the U.S. president the United Kingdom's support, and that requires, at the very least, a full and thorough inquiry."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-britbook11feb11,0,2940212.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Hissyspit]

1. Repeat after me, America: "The Iraq War - a scam and a sham."

"The Iraq War - a scam and a sham."

And some of us knew it before it started. And all of us know it know, even those whou would deny it up and down on their mother's grave know it, they just don't want to let anyone hear them say it.

[laststeamtrain]

2. Too bad a mature adult like Bill Clinton or Al Gore or John Kerry hadn't

...been around to reign in the rambunctious children.