Iraq Memo Bush Blair WMDs

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/blai-j26.shtml

A confidential memo obtained by the Observer, detailing a meeting between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, confirms their determination to press ahead with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 without any evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and without United Nations approval.

The five-page memo, written by Blair’s foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning, is dated January 31, 2003, some two months before the invasion began. It records the thinking of Bush and Blair as it became increasingly obvious that United Nations weapons inspectors would not find the advanced weaponry, including a nuclear capability, that both leaders were using to justify military action. .....

...... Manning’s memo was copied to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff, Admiral Lord Boyce, the chief of defence staff, and Sir Christopher Meyer, the British ambassador to Washington ........

.....A Dutch government’s inquiry into the Netherlands’ support for the war will look at all MI5 and MI6 intelligence that was shared with its intelligence services. That inquiry is due to report in November, and this could mean that information about the US and British role will be published ahead of Chilcott’s report next year.