Michael Smith, a reporter for the Sunday Times of London, has led the coverage, starting with his report of the so-called Downing Street Memo on May 1.
Smith was online Thursday, June 16, at 10 a.m. ET to discuss the Downing Street Memo and his reporting.
the juiciest tidbits:
Washington, D.C.: To what do you attribute the seeming lack of interest by the American public and main stream media, at least initially, in the revelations contained in the Downing Street Memo?
Michael Smith: Firstly, I think the leaks were regarded as politically motivated. Secondly there was a feeling of well we said that way back when. Then of course as the pressure mounted from the outside, there was a defensive attitude. "We have said this before, if you the reader didn't listen well what can we do", seemed to be the attitude. I don't know if you have this expression over there, but we say someone "wants to have their cake and eat it". That's what that response reeks of. Either it was politically motivated and therefore not true or it was published before by the U.S. newspapers and was true, it can't be both can it?
The attitude they have taken is just flat wrong, to borrow an expression from the White House spokesman on the Downing St Memo.
It is one thing for the New York Times or The Washington Post to say that we were being told that the intelligence was being fixed by sources inside the CIA or Pentagon or the NSC and quite another to have documentary confirmation in the form of the minutes of a key meeting with the Prime Minister's office. Think of it this way, all the key players were there. This was the equivalent of an NSC meeting, with the President, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, George Tenet, and Tommy Franks all there. They say the evidence against Saddam Hussein is thin, the Brits think regime change is illegal under international law so we are going to have to go to the U.N. to get an ultimatum, not as a way of averting war but as an excuse to make the war legal, and oh by the way we aren't preparing for what happens after and no-one has the faintest idea what Iraq will be like after a war. Not reportable, are you kidding me?
One point I would make though, everyone keeps saying it is continually making waves over here. We at the Sunday Times are not going to let it go but no-one else is interested in the U.K. press. The Washington Post came to it late but look at everything it is doing now. Ignore today's silly editorial article. The Post is now working away at this and I know they are planning to try to do more on it. Sadly there is no sign of the New York Times changing its sniffy we told you this already view!
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Fairfax, Va.: Do you expect we will see more leaks which further corroborate the assertion that Bush lied to justify the neoconservatives' aggressive stance against Iraq? Also, what are your thoughts on the semantics argument of the Iraq war supporters (i.e., in the U.K., "fixed around" doesn't mean what you think it means...)?
Michael Smith: There are number of people asking about fixed and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed and as for the reports that said this was one British official. Pleeeaaassee! This was the head of MI6. How much authority do you want the man to have? He has just been to Washington, he has just talked to George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq. Fixed means the same here as it does there. More leaks? I do hope so and the more Blair and Bush lie to try to get themselves off the hook the more likely it is that we will get more leaks.
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Bowie, Md.: Considering the fact that both elections (Bush and Blair) are now concluded and the public has supported both, what real significance does the memo play in today's politics? Other than confirming what the opposition already suspected.
Michael Smith: The war and the lies around the war, as patently demonstrated by the various documents I obtained, has already ensured that Blair will retire early.
I believe that we will see more coming out in America. I think as I said earlier that we have reached a tipping point, where the public will turn against the war and that will have a definite effect on the mid-term elections. Anything more depends on the mood of Congress.
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Washington, D.C.: Assuming that PM Blair is still in power, if the U.S. decides to take military action against Iran or Syria in the future, do you think Britain will go along this time?
Michael Smith: Hell will freeze over before another U.K. prime minister follows Bush to war. It would be political suicide.
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Alexandria, Va.: I guess I see this memo as being interesting from a British perspective but haven't we known the basics in the U.S. for a long time ?
Quite a while ago, Paul Wolfowitz clearly stated that WMD was used as a pretext to go to war because the administration believed it to be the only way to sell a preemptive attack on Iraq.
This was reported in the press. People read it. There seemed to be little hubbub about it.
I'd contend that most Americans just don't give a damn and those that do fall into the us vs. them category.
Michael Smith: You may be right. There is a whole swathe of America that does feel that way. It gets most of its news from Fox and it is very happy to trust the administration. But the polls show that those people are becoming a minority, maybe not a small minority but a minority. When the approval rates for the war will stop dropping is a good question but they have some way to go yet. Too many troops have died. This whole story will have an effect. But there will be other effects. How many communities are there in America who haven't lost someone? That will all have an effect. There seems no way to stop the number of soldiers dying. The polls will have their own momentum. The more people you see taking a view, the more you tend to think maybe they're right.
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Los Angeles, Calif.: Do you believe the Wolfowitz Doctrine, written up at Project for a New American Century in 2000, is evidence that should be submitted alongside the Downing Street Memos, or are the doctrine's aims of proving America's military might by overthrowing Saddam's regime and protecting our Saudi resources irrelevant for an investigation at this point?
Michael Smith: Well you can't say they didn't warn us. I think that is all part of what the congressional committees will eventually get their teeth into.
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Arlington, Va.: Among military people, you're known as pro-defense. Why the point of your anti-Iraq war article?
Michael Smith: Thank you for giving me the chance to answer this question. I am very pro-defence you're right. All right-thinking people should be. Saddam Hussein might not have been the threat he was painted but there are plenty out there who would be given the chance. As the 9/11 commission showed, America let its defences drop and got caught with a sucker punch. That shows the need to keep up your defences.
We in Europe rely too often on America to bail us out, even if occasionally you come a bit late to the party! Defence budgets are repeatedly cut over here with the armed forces being asked to do more and more. As some of you may have guessed by now before I became a journalist, I served in the army. That makes me all the more angry when people fight wars they don't need to and kill people who don't need to be killed, not least because it is never the politicians who get killed it is the ordinary soldiers.
Bin Laden is a legitimate target, Iraq, even an Iraq led by Saddam Hussein, was not. This was an illegal war but the most criminal part of it all was the lazy, arrogant way they went into it. (British tanks crossing the start lines, in a war being fought about WMD, did not even have any chemical or biological filters fitted because the Ministry of Defence failed to buy them in time.)
Just look at all those memos again, don't look for fixed intelligence, don't look for illegality. Just look at the lack of preparation, look how right all those experts who said it would all turn out badly were and then wonder how many British and American soldiers died because those politicians were too arrogant to take the advice of the experts.
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Fairfax, Va.: What role do you think bloggers and their persistence played in the mainstream American media picking up the Downing Street Memo story? The MSM here ignored the story for more than a month.
Michael Smith: I think your question says it all. They played a crucial role. AfterDowningStreet.org ; DowningStreetMemo.com ; RawStory ; and Salon have all played major parts. I had better stop naming sites or I will be accused of leaving out other important ones.
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