Comment: Letter to Washington Post re. Downing Street Memos

Your editorial writers supported Bush's case for invading Iraq and taking it over. They generally accepted the assertions of Bush and his subordinates uncritically. Your writers did not hold Bush to account for the fear-mongering exaggerations that he, Cheney, et al repeated over and over. And of course your naive writers, having essentially trusted Bush to be honest and candid, turned out to be wrong about everything concerning Iraq: No weapons of mass destruction. No significant threat to the United States.

Those same writers say today that the Downing Street memos add nothing to the debate over how we came to invade Iraq and take it over. The principal memo states the view of the most highly placed British officials, after consulting with the Bush administration, that contrary to Bush's repeated statements, Bush had early on decided to invade Iraq, and that "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Your writers say that is nothing new because some of us thought all along that Bush was set on war and was perverting the intelligence to get war. The news here is that highly placed British officials, after consulting with the Bush administration, took the same view. The news is that British officials confirm what we critics of the war were saying all along. The news is that the debate is pretty much over. We were right, and your writers were wrong. Bush wanted war, and he perverted the intelligence to get it.