WP (Froomkin): DSM-II comes at bad time for Bush

[Cocoa]

DSM-II is an apt nickname for something associated with this war...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/13/BL2005061300982_pf.html

A second British memo from 2002 emerged over the weekend chronicling how senior officials there saw the Bush administration as bent on war in Iraq and inattentive to postwar consequences.

Just last week, the MSM (that's mainstream media) turned its attention to the first DSM (that's Downing Street Memo) in earnest.
(See my June 8 column for background.)

The new memo (can we call it DSM-II?) comes at a particularly bad time for Bush, as polls show that public sentiment is turning sharply against the war.

Whether you read the memos as a reminder of how the Bush administration was relentless in its drive to confront Saddam Hussein -- or whether you read them as evidence of cynical, deliberate and misguided manipulation -- the White House would much rather you weren't thinking about Iraq at all this week--it is focusing public attention on domestic issues instead.

More…

[charlyvi]

1. I hope it sticks this time.

I hope it's Rove-proof.

[AceAlmighty82]

6. It better stick!

Now the only question is...Is there more hidden someplace and just waiting to get out? Nothing is perfect. No such thing..so that means even Rove can't hide some things. Conyers needs to get another petition for DSM 2. I'll be the first to sign it.

[Rainscents]

11. I'm sure there is... drip...drip...drip!

:popcorn:

[AceAlmighty82]

16. Mind if I....

have some of that popcorn while we wait for the dripping to stop. :popcorn:

[newyawker99]

28. Hi AceAlmighty82!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[aggiesal]

22. I refer to it as the, "Minister's Memo"

Just to differentiate it from the "Downing Street Memo"

[goclark]

31. I thought they were MINUTES nt

[aggiesal]

39. I thought DSM also stood for

Downing Street Minutes, but everywhere I read, it is referred to it as Memo.
We can call it Minister's Minutes.

[Synnical]

2. Also, this from Andrea Mitchell

More British memos on pre-Iraq war concerns

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8207731/

Little bombshell in the last paragraph of the article:

Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Chris Matthews from MSNBC-TV's “Hardball,” “I would never claim that the exact nature of this insurgency was understood at the time that we went to war.”

Vice President Dick Cheney also told a National Press Club luncheon Monday, “Any suggestion that we did not exhaust all alternatives before we got to that point, I think, is inaccurate.”

In fact, current and former diplomats tell NBC News they understood from the beginning the Bush policy to be that Saddam had to be removed — one way or the other. The only question was when and how.

[jaxx]

3. They're all busy trying to cover their asses and it's too late.

Let them squirm, and watch the lies pop.

[LunaC]

23. Let's take them the next step

Thanks for the story and link. It gave me a chance to shoot off another email to keep them motivated and on the story.....I'm somewhat obsessed with exposing the PNAC.....

================
Thank you for your story regarding the Downing Street Memos and finally keeping the spotlight on a very important issue. However, plans to attack Iraq originated years before the British memos came into existence.

On January 26, 1998, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Richard Armitage, and John Bolton (among others) signed a letter to President Clinton issued by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) urging an attack on Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power because he put "a significant portion of the world's supply of oil at hazard". All of the aforementioned signators were elevated into the Bush Administration hierarchy immediately after the 2000 Election.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm


Clearly, the PNAC-populated White House intended to attack Iraq many years before the actual event and this adds an important insight to the entire Downing Street story.

If you are interested in learning more about the PNAC, the following link will be helpful:
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/PNAC_101

Sincerely,

[Dr Fate]

4. Is it "safe"yet for Dean, Kerry, Hillary, Reid etc to discuss this on TV?

Why aren't they out there making folks aware of Conyer's hearings this week?

[stubtoe]

33. An excellent question.

What's up with that, do you think? Are they waiting for every last shoe to drop before sticking their necks out, or what?

[Lucky Luciano]

5. Fine....focus on domestic issues

They fucked that all up too.

There is nothing they can focus on because they have completely FOOBARed everything. Everyyhing they touch turns to shit.

[natrat]

14. hey but they stole alot of money

vast sums

[marmar]

15. Ain't that the truth...

They could fuck up a cup of coffee. Few people could claim to have run an oil company, a baseball team and a country into the ground.

:dunce:

[liberalcanuck]

17. That is absolutely hilarious. That needs to be used by the Dems!

This assclown would be funny if it weren't for all the people being killed or driven to the poorhouse by this idiot.

[Silvermint]

18. Actually

FUBARed =)

[Lucky Luciano]

21. haha - yer right

I got used to the computer programmer lingo where they have functions called "foo" and functions called "bar" when giving examples.

[sasquatch]

7. Like how they spun this: "Bad time for Bush"

Why not just "DSM II proves that Bush cared little about post war Iraq."? Or do their corporate bosses order them to get on their knees and smile like a douhgnut at all times for Bush.

[MrScorpio]

8. A DSM-IV-TR is more appropriate for Bush

The whole tome was written with him in mind

http://www.psychologynet.org/dsm.html

[i have issues]

10. Interesting you should mention DSM IV

When I was a kid in NYC, I worked at the State Psychiatric Inst. I was a clerk in Dr. Spitzers office while he was working on the DSM III. Weird.

[ClintonTyree]

9. More on the lying liars...........

".'There was significant postwar planning,' David Almacy, a White House spokesman, said.

".'More importantly, the memo in question was written eight months before the war began -- there was significant postwar planning in the time that elapsed,' he said."

Gee, it took them eight months to solidify their LIES to present to the United Nations, Congress and the American People. In that time the civilians in the DOD (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz) had to shuffle the Generals until they could find one to agree with their troop assessment. That took a lot of time. The knowledgeable Generals KNEW it would take at least three times as many troops on the ground than the civilians thought would suffice. In that time they were dividing up the post war spoils that were sure to come, remember, those oil fields were job #1 after the invasion. That took a lot of time. In that time they were massaging intelligence estimates to bolster their LIES, and THAT took the MOST time. Yes, there were a multitude of things the administration WAS doing. However, one of them WAS NOT assessing the conditions of post war Iraq.

They were going to throw roses at the American soldiers, remember? The war was going to pay for itself, remember? Yeah, they planned it out VERY WELL, didn't they? :mad:

It's painfully obvious that there WAS NOT sufficient planning. Not enough armored vehicles for out troops. Soldiers scavenging in garbage dumps to find iron to fit onto their vehicles. Stores of explosives left unguarded, looted and used to kill our fighting men and women. Looting of priceless artifacts from Iraqi museums. Hardly ANY progress on the electricity and drinking water shortages outside the Green Zone. But the oil fields we're protected! That is until they started moving troops around because they didn't have sufficient numbers of them, and then THOSE were blown to hell.

I could go on for hours about "how well they planned" for post war Iraq. You can believe NOTHING that comes from this administration, NOTHING! :grr:

[ProfessorGAC]

32. Planning Has Nothing To Do With The Issue

So, we had 8 more months to plan. So what? The point is that they were bound to go and had to find a way to convince the american people we needed to go to war.

The subsequent 8 months of WAR planning has nothing to do with the fact that we were bound to attack Iraq whether it was the right thing to do or not. The 8 months were used solely for logisitical planning and the goal of obfuscating the facts from the public. They went in knowing the plans for the post-war were incomplete and based upon rosy projections. But, the critical issue of these memos is that they LIED!

The further planning is irrelevant.
The Professor

[McCamy Taylor]

12. Guess the Wa Post was afraid not to report on the story.

[Pystoff]

13. Read the whole article

Froomkin nails many issues other than DSM...one of the best is the "interview" Cavuto had with Bushyboi. In another article I read here today Froomkin said that "interview" was the talk of the DC A-list parties over the weekend with ppl in the press commenting saying the questions Cavuto asked couldn't have been written better if the WhiteHouse had done it themselves LOL.

[bejammin075]

19. U.S. DSM doesn't exist: Bush doesn't read

If we had a literate president, I'd hold out hope of finding a U.S. version of the DSM, but Bush doesn't read.

Perhaps they have special presidential 8-tracks, or maybe they brief him with those old kiddie binocular thingies with the microfishe-like pictures on the discs that rotate through when you pull the little lever?

[bejammin075]

20. I'll pay for a doctored photo of that

[Enraged_Ape]

27. ViewMaster

[KittyWampus]

35. That's A Beautiful Photograph, Enraged Ape.

[Enraged_Ape]

36. I wish I'd taken it

It's from a very talented B&W photographer named Stephanie Bartz.

www.sbartzphotography.com

[Douglas Carpenter]

24. Don't Let up on the Media--EVER!

:bounce:


Just a reminder of some very, very important links:

To sign Congressman Conyers’ letter

http://www.johnconyers.campaignoffice.com


To put and keep pressure on the Mainstream Media:

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/takeaction.html#awaken


http://www.afterdowningstreet.org


C-SPAN Ask--them to cover the Hearing on Thursday, 16 June:

[e-mail]


Peace
O8)

Here is my standard letter to the Media:


Dear Sir/Madam:

As you know, on May 1 of this year a document now commonly referred to as “|The Downing Street Memo” was released into the British Press. This document raises serious question about how the administration was handling intelligence related to Iraq and appears to suggest that the Bush Administration had already decided on war when publicly it was claiming that no such decision had been made. Now further documents have been released in the British media which cast even further doubts.

These documents and other documents suggest that the Bush administration was determined to “fix intelligence” around a predetermined policy. Some of these documents make it clear that the administration had no credible plan for dealing with the post-war occupation.

It is most disturbing that there has been a virtual media blackout regarding “The Downing Street Minutes” and other disturbing documents.

Even more disturbing is the absence in the America media of any credible in-depth follow-up discussion or coverage regarding strong, credible and independent evidence that the Bush Administration intentionally mislead the U.S. Congress, the media and the American people.

I do hope you will accept the responsibility to address this issue and provide serious investigative journalism into this matter.

Furthermore, on Thursday June 16, 2005, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other House members will hold a hearing to consider testimony concerning the Downing Street minutes and questions of possible fixing of prewar intelligence. I do hope you will be giving full coverage to these events.

Sincerely,

[TaleWgnDg]

25. self-delete

[radfringe]

26. DSM II, III, IV, V, Vi, VII......and the list goes on

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1078

pdf files are at the end of article:
British Iraq Options Paper
Manning Paper
Meyer Paper
Ricketts Paper
Straw Paper
British Legal Background Paper

FULL TEXT OF BRITISH BRIEFING PAPERS REVEALED: More Evidence Intel Was Fixed

As noted previously on ThinkProgress, the American media had failed to report on the British Briefing Papers – covered by the British media last September – that showed that the British felt the pre-war evidence for attacking Iraq was weak and that the U.S. lacked a plan to address the post-war situation. Using the Downing Street Minutes to bring light to these Briefing Papers, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus wrote a front-page story this weekend calling attention to the charges in those documents.

In a headline entitled, “Memo: U.S. Lacked Full Postwar Iraq Plan,” Pincus uncovered a British memo warning of post-war instability that would arise because the Bush administration was unrealistic about the post-war phase. A number of the Papers in the Pincus article are attached below. As one of the Papers warns, the U.S. had no plans for “what happens on the morning after .”

The main thrust of the British Briefing Papers certainly focused on the Bush administration’s failure to plan, but there’s another key point in the Papers which Pincus chose not to highlight, a point which meshes well with the revelations in the Downing Street Minutes. As you know, the Downing Street Minutes said the Bush administration “fixed” the intelligence around its policy of attacking Iraq. The British Briefing Papers lend further credence to this point.

[El Fuego]

29. Now that the Michael Jackson circus is over

I hope the DSMs get on the front burner with the MSM.

[Thirsty]

30. I wish it were over...

Stories about him being a changed man and coverage of the "aftermath" are still bubbling up from the cesspool of corporate media. They are not going to let that go away anytime soon.

[El Fuego]

34. Sad but true

You're right, they'll milk it for a long time.

[redqueen]

38. Hi Thirsty,

Welcome to DU!

:hi:

They'll still yakk about the circuses, but to me that just means we have to be even more diligent about not clicking those links or discussing those distractions. Don't want to help them in their efforts to drown out everything meaningful, after all.

[redqueen]

37. Recommended...

It's getting drafty lately... I sense an increasing shift in public sentiment starting soon.