The Other Memo
Mar 28th, 2006 at 11:47 am by Susie
Tar and feathers, anyone?
Philippe Sands was on Hardball last night. He’s the U.K. law professor who originally broke the news on the memo recording the January 31, 2003 Bush/Blair meeting at the White House.
His book, “Lawless World,” isn’t available in the U.S. yet. And I was genuinely surprised when Sands said it also mentions ANOTHER memo:
…one other aspect that I’ve described in my book, “Lawless World” that hasn’t emerged so much in “The New York Times” is another memo, which records a conversation between Colin Powell and his counterpart in the United Kingdom, Jack Straw, which makes it clear that in Colin Powell’s eyes if there wasn’t enough evidence for a second security council resolution, then there wasn’t enough evidence to justify the U.S. going in alone.
This immediately reminded me of a story the Guardian published on May 31, 2003. The story claimed a transcript of a conversation between Colin Powell and his U.K. counterpart Jack Straw was circulating in NATO circles. Supposedly they spoke briefly before Powell’s address at the U.N., and both had deep concerns about the Iraq intelligence:
Mr Powell told the foreign secretary he hoped the facts, when they came out, would not “explode in their faces.”
