Criticism of The Memo
Fred Kaplan argues that this contradicts the purported "smoking gun" of the issue of WMDs being fabricated.
- "For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary."
As mentioned above, shortly after the appearance of the memo, Tony Blair was asked: "The so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened?" and responded "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all." It is not clear, however, whether this is a criticism of the assessment of his own head of foreign intelligence (Dearlove) or a criticism of a particular interpretation of Dearlove's phrase "fixed around".
Read more about this topic: Downing Street Memo
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