questions about the "MEMO"

[garybeck]

I just read most of the infamous "smoking gun memo" that supposedly proves Bush was intent on going to war before consulting with Congress and that they planned to fix the facts about WMD to sell the idea.

I have a couple questions.

The memo is dated 2002. Why is it all written in the past tense? If it is a report on a meeting, it seems it would be worded the present tense.

For example it says things like "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam,"

If it were authentic, wouldn't it say Military action IS now seen as inevitable. Bush WANTS to remove Saddam,

??

Another question - the author of the memo is given as MATTHEW RYCROFT. Has this person commented publicly since the memo was released? has he confirmed authenticity?

??

I'm a little concerned that this could be another Rove game, planting fake memos for the media to suck up and then prove wrong. I hope that's not the case.

If anyone could answer these questions, please do.

thanks

[sabra]

1. Could the past tense just be a review of minutes

of a meeting that had occured?

[Spazito]

2. This is a report on the meeting, not the minutes of the meeting itself

which is why it is titled Memo, not minutes.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html


I can find nowhere where is says it is the minutes of the meeting, please point out where you have found that, it would be helpful.

[garybeck]

6. i agree, it's not the minutes of the meeting

but still, the events described in the memo would presumably be going on while it was being written. I find the use of past tense to be questionable, regardless of whether it's the official minutes, or a report on the minutes. The date of the memo is noted, and it seems pretty clear it was written close to the date of the meeting itself, so all those things would be going on at the time.

If I were writing such a memo, I would use the present tense. I would say "Bush is intent on military action... the facts are going to be fixed..."

[Liberty Belle]

7. I'm secretary of an organization and take notes in past tense,

for use writing up minutes later on.

[autorank]

3. garybeck, That's the type of thinking Dan Rather should have done!

Geez, how come we know this stuff and the media does not? The key is Rycroft. Do you know if the media contacted him, probably not. That would require leaving their offices. Maybe a blogger will, the CM can review it on the blogs, and then report it as one of those internet stories.

I have a great idea for bloggers. They should post "private blogs" for CM (corporate media) with 1/2 hour embargo on their main site. Only CM could see these. If CM wanted the story, they could buy it with the understanding that the reporting could be attributed to the CM source. This is the type of outsourcing we need!

[JohnnyRingo]

4. To begin with, the White House refuses comment.

And the authenticity is not being disputed by Blair and co:

Proof Bush Fixed The Facts

"Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern served 27 years as a CIA analyst .

<Excerpt>
Well, you can forget circumstantial. Thanks to an unauthorized disclosure by a courageous whistleblower, the evidence now leaps from official documents—this time authentic, not forged. Whether prompted by the open appeal of the international Truth-Telling Coalition or not, some brave soul has made the most explosive "patriotic leak" of the war by giving London's Sunday Times the official minutes of a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then head of Britain's CIA equivalent, MI-6. Fresh back in London from consultations in Washington, Dearlove briefed Prime Minister Blair and his top national security officials on July 23, 2002, on the Bush administration's plans to make war on Iraq.

Blair does not dispute the authenticity of the document, which immortalizes a discussion that is chillingly amoral. Apparently no one felt free to ask the obvious questions. Or, worse still, the obvious questions did not occur.

More:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8748.htm

[garybeck]

5. "not being disputed"

is not the same as acknowledging authenticity.

I've just been burned by too many "memos" before. I want the author to speak out. I want solid proof or acknowledgment of authenticity so it doesn't bite us later on.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. The author is a government employee

and won't talk about the memo. There's no way round that. "Not being disputed" means that Downing Street has said "there's nothing new" in the document.They accept the contents - they just say it's not proof of anything illegal.

[Brotherjohn]

8. I don't see the past tense as a problem. It's not only not "minutes"...

... (at least not a verbatim transcript of the meeting), but it's a SUMMARY of what was said at a meeting with Tony Blair on 7-23-2003 ABOUT a meeting that occurred earlier in Washington, D.C., with Bush administration officials.

"This is what they said... this is what THEY wanted to do..."

I appreciate your hesitancy to completely believe this memo, but here's three thoughts:

1) No one has ever proven the Dan Rather memo a forgery. They just slandered it until there was enough doubt until it stuck.

2) Regardless of the authenticity of this memo, the Bushies are going to try to slander it as fake until it sticks. So what, we do nothing with it, then?

3) The whole exercise is a joke, because anyone who read enough in late 2002, early 2003 KNOWS the Bush administration did just what the memo claims. Aluminim tubes, Niger-uranium deal, unmanned drones... in these cases and many more, the Bush admin dismissed dissenting evidence (often from our own intel) and promoted only evidence agreeing with their hypothesis: that Saddam was building WMDs. This is why Bush's hand-picked commissions explicitly steered clear of that question.

But the record is clear. The Bush administration did indeed "fix facts and intelligence" to support the policy of invasion. Bringing this memo out at least will finally make people talk about that, instead of sweeping it under the rug.