Sanity weighs in

The Chicago Tribune weighs in on the Downing Street Memo. I swear, the piece could have been written by Sim, the arguments sounded so similar:


The memo, and other documents obtained by Michael Smith, a defense writer in Britain, do show us something. They show us how governments prepare to go to war.

These documents provide some of the words and thoughts of the players involved in the Iraq crisis. The documents show us the strain on policymakers, give us a look backstage as British officials report on meetings with key U.S. officials.

The documents show decisions were not made in a vacuum. They came in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Straw noted in a March 2002 memo that had those attacks not occurred, "it is doubtful that the U.S. would now be considering military action against Iraq."

The documents also laid out the options policymakers faced: whether to proceed with the policy of containing Iraq through economic sanctions or to topple Hussein's regime. In hindsight, from these memos, a careful reader can piece together how and why the U.S. and British governments came together on the decision to go to war.

"In sum, despite the considerable difficulties, the use of overriding force in a ground campaign is the only option that we can be confident will remove Saddam and bring Iraq back into the international community," was the conclusion of a 10-page options paper from March 2002--months before the Downing Street memo--prepared by the Overseas and Defense Secretariat of the Cabinet Office.

That paper weighed two possibilities for post-Saddam Iraq: rule by a Sunni military strongman or a representative democratic government. The paper acknowledged that for a democratic government to survive, "it would require the U.S. and others to commit to nation building for many years."

And that's where we are today--building a representative democratic government for Iraq.

All things I've heard him say in discussions of what the DSM is/isn't. Either he writes for the Editorial Board of the Trib or reasonable people must draw the same conclusion. You decide.