So I finally read the infamous Downing Street Memo. Not much there I didn’t already learn from Bob Woodward. Reading the memo I’m reminded of the scene in ESB when Luke asks “What’s in there?” and Yoda replies “Only what you take with you”. If you are an anti-war Bush hater you’ll see all the damning evidence of a conspiracy.

There are two interesting parts of the memo - beyond the glimpse into UK military jargon.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. (emphasis mine)

The allegations that policy drove the intelligence is old news. As is the fact that post-conflict planning was severely lacking. Given the sorry state of Iraq today - the fact that the Blair Government knew this before hand is more of an black-eye to him than to the Bush Administration.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force

First off, just because Saddam wasn’t actively threatening people doesn’t mean he wasn’t a threat. And just because other countries had greater WMD capacities doesn’t necessarily mean they need to be bumped to a higher number of the regime change list. Iran is on the road to reform, so invasion doesn’t make sense at this time. Qaddafi is looking to be the elder statesmen of Africa - and has voluntarily shut down some of his WMD programs. North Korea is its own quagmire that China needs to deal with.

Iraq was unique in that we already had the UN resolutions in place, it had a mostly crippled military, and we already had lots of troops in place. If we wanted to pick a target to make an example of, Iraq was the prime choice.

All in all I don’t see the smoking gun evidence of wrong doing. But then again I didn’t go in there carrying the hatred that leads to the dark side either.