The Manning Memo and Iraq

Since the onset of the war on terrorism and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, I have constantly maintained my stand on the war and it is still the same, support the troops in harms way who are fighting for their country. In doing, so you do not have to agree with nor has support the administration that sent them there in the first place, you only have to support the men and women of our armed forces.

With this statement in mind, I have been following the events leading to the war in Iraq and the recently released Manning memo sheds a new light on this information. It also serves to validate the already released Downing Street memo and paint a fuller picture of the events leading to the invasion. Bear in mind that unlike the Downing Street memo, the newer Manning memo can be judged on its own merit; it was written by a known assistant to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Now that the Manning and Downing Street memos have been released there appears to be an every-growing paper trail of mounting evidence, suggesting President Bush had prior knowledge of the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to launching an attack.

I am sure you recall that shortly before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, President Bush was telling anyone who would listen that if Saddam Hussein did not give up his weapons of mass destruction; Iraq would face war with America. New evidence has been released clearly demonstrating that in a January 31 closed-door meeting, President Bush had informed his Britton blood brother, Tony Blair that the attack would take place even without the hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction and further George W. and Tony privately agreed that such weapons were not likely to be located.

This supposedly deliberate bit of deception is unveiled in a confidential five-page memo written by David Manning, Tony Blair’s top foreign policy advisor, who had actively participated in the meeting. The Manning memo confirms the information within the now- famous Downing Street memo from 2002, in which various other aids of Tony Blair reported that President Bush was manipulating intelligence reports and mounting evidence in a clear effort to support his push to launch an invasion with combined forces into Iraq.

The Manning memo records that both President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were uptight that weapons of mass destruction would never be found. This would have effectively demonstrated to the public that both politicians fabricated this evidence to launch the attack upon Iraq. The memo further demonstrates various scenarios put forth by President Bush that would lead to the UN authorizing the attack and removing the question of weapons of mass destruction all together.

The mounting evidence only supports the theory many have put forth stating President Bush used the war on terrorism to launch a war to complete what his father had failed to do, remove Saddam Hussein from power.

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