This Minority Report has been produced at the request of Representative John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. He made this request in the wake of the President's failure to respond to a letter submitted by 122 Members of Congress and more than 500,000 Americans in July of this year asking him whether the assertions set forth in the Downing Street Minutes were accurate. Mr. Conyers asked staff, by year end 2005, to review the available information concerning possible misconduct by the Bush Administration in the run up to the Iraq War and post-invasion statements and actions, and to develop legal conclusions and make legislative and other recommendations to him.

In brief, we have found that there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration.

There is a prima facie case that these actions by the President, Vice-President and other members of the Bush Administration violated a number of federal laws, including (1) Committing a Fraud against the United States; (2) Making False Statements to Congress; (3) The War Powers Resolution; (4) Misuse of Government Funds; (5) federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; (6) federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other individuals; and (7) federal laws and regulations concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence.

While these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable misconduct, because the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have blocked the ability of Members to obtain information directly from the Administration concerning these matters, more investigatory authority is needed before recommendations can be made regarding specific Articles of Impeachment. As a result, we recommend that Congress establish a select committee with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush Administration with regard to the Iraq war detailed in this Report and report to the Committee on the Judiciary on possible impeachable offenses.

In addition, we believe the failure of the President, Vice President and others in the Bush Administration to respond to myriad requests for information concerning these charges, or to otherwise account for or explain a number of specific misstatements they have made in the run up to War and other actions warrants, at minimum, the introduction and Congress' approval of Resolutions of Censure against Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. Further, we recommend that Ranking Member Conyers and others consider referring the potential violations of federal criminal law detailed in this Report to the Department of Justice for investigation; Congress should pass legislation to limit government secrecy, enhance oversight of the Executive Branch, request notification and justification of presidential pardons of Administration officials, ban abusive treatment of detainees, ban the use of chemical weapons, and ban the practice of paying foreign media outlets to publish news stories prepared by or for the Pentagon; and the House should amend its Rules to permit Ranking Members of Committees to schedule official Committee hearings and call witnesses to investigate Executive Branch misconduct.

The Report rejects the frequent contention by the Bush Administration that their pre-war conduct has been reviewed and they have been exonerated. No entity has ever considered whether the Administration misled Americans about the decision to go to war. The Senate Intelligence Committee has not yet conducted a review of pre-war intelligence distortion and manipulation, while the Silberman-Robb report specifically cautioned that intelligence manipulation “was not part of our inquiry.” There has also not been any independent inquiry concerning torture and other legal violations in Iraq; nor has there been an independent review of the pattern of cover-ups and political retribution by the Bush Administration against its critics, other than the very narrow and still ongoing inquiry of Special Counsel Fitzgerald.

While the scope of this Report is largely limited to Iraq, it also holds lessons for our Nation at a time of entrenched one-party rule and abuse of power in Washington. If the present Administration is willing to misstate the facts in order to achieve its political objectives in Iraq, and Congress is unwilling to confront or challenge their hegemony, many of our cherished democratic principles are in jeopardy. This is true not only with respect to the Iraq War, but also in regard to other areas of foreign policy, privacy and civil liberties, and matters of economic and social justice. Indeed as this Report is being finalized, we have just learned of another potential significant abuse of executive power by the President, ordering the National Security Agency to engage in domestic spying and wiretapping without obtaining court approval in possible violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

It is tragic that our Nation has invaded another sovereign nation because “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,” as stated in the Downing Street Minutes. It is equally tragic that the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress have been unwilling to examine these facts or take action to prevent this scenario from occurring again. Since they appear unwilling to act, it is incumbent on individual Members of Congress as well as the American public to act to protect our constitutional form of government.


II.     Chronology: Last Throes of Credibility

“But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” -----May 30, 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney's Remarks on the Iraqi insurgency, Larry King Live[1]

The 2000 Presidential election focused on many issues relating to domestic and foreign policy.[2] However, the topic of Iraq was virtually unmentioned in the campaign. In a presidential debate with then-Vice President Al Gore, then-presidential candidate George W. Bush emphasized that he would be careful about using troops for “nation building” purposes and that he would not launch a pre-emptive war because he believed the role of the military was to “prevent war from happening in the first place.”[3] At the same time, some future members of the Bush Administration, dubbed the neoconservatives, were waiting for war with Iraq. High-ranking officials such as Dick Cheney, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz were part of this group.[4]

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush Administration began to hint at the coming attack on Iraq. In his January 29, 2002 State of the Union Address, the President remarked that countries like Iraq, Iran and North Korea “constitute an axis of evil. . . . These regimes pose a grave and growing danger. . . . I will not wait on events, while dangers gather.”[5] On June 1, 2002, during a speech at West Point, President Bush formally enunciated his doctrine of preemption that would be used against Iraq.[6] It was also around this time that Vice President Cheney and his Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, began making a series of unusual trips to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to discuss Iraq intelligence.[7]

At the same time, the President's public statements indicated a reluctance to use military force in Iraq. He assured the public that he had not made up his mind to go to war with Iraq and that war was a last resort.[8] However, contrary to these public statements, the Bush Administration formed the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) in August 2002 in an apparent effort to bolster public support for war with Iraq.[9]

Shortly thereafter, the Administration began making more alarming and sensational claims about the danger posed to the United States by Iraq including in a September 12, 2002 address to the United Nations, and began to press forward publicly with preparations for war.[10] In the days following the President's speech to the United Nations, Iraq delivered a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stating that it would allow the return of UN weapons inspectors “without conditions.”[11] But on September 18, President Bush discredited Hussein's offer to let UN inspectors back into Iraq as “his latest ploy.”[12]

As the Congressional vote to authorize force against Iraq approached, the President and Administration officials raised the specter of a nuclear attack by Iraq.[13] The President subsequently received from Congress on October 11, 2002, a joint resolution for the use of force in Iraq.[14] Based on the intelligence findings in the National Intelligence Estimate provided to Congress by the Administration, the resolution stated that Iraq posed a “continuing threat” to the United States by, among other things, “actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability.”[15]

The President's focus then moved on to the United Nations in an effort to persuade the UN to approve renewed weapons inspections in Iraq and sanctions for noncompliance. Once again, the President asserted his reluctance to take military action. Upon signing the resolution, the President stated: “I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use of force will not become necessary.”[16] On November 8, 2002, the United Nations Security Council adopted UN Resolution 1441, which stipulated that Iraq was required to readmit UN weapons inspectors under more stringent terms than required by previous UN Resolutions.[17]

On January 27, 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicated that the Bush Administration's claim that aluminum tubes being delivered to Iraq were part of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program likely was false.[18] In the wake of this claim being discredited, President Bush introduced a new piece of evidence to the public in his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, to demonstrate that Iraq was developing a nuclear arms program: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”[19]

On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell took the Bush Administration's case to the United Nations Security Council. In a presentation to the United Nations, Secretary Powell charged, among other things, that Iraq had “mobile production facilities” for biological weapons.[20] With its case to the United Nations delivered, for the first time and contrary to earlier claims that the Administration was reluctant to use force, the Administration publicly indicated its readiness and enthusiasm for going to war. The question was no longer whether force would be used, but what - if any - difficulties would accompany the use of force. Vice President Dick Cheney made an appearance on Meet the Press and stated that the war was not going to be long, costly or bloody because “we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”[21]

On March 18, 2003, the President submitted a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate informing the Congress of his determination that diplomatic and peaceful means alone would not protect the Nation or lead to Iraqi compliance with United Nations demands.[22] On March 20, the President launched the preemptive invasion.

A little more than a month into the invasion, President Bush landed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and, standing beneath a massive banner reading “Mission Accomplished,” he stated, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”[23] Immediately thereafter, it was self-evident that - despite the premature declaration of victory - numerous problems persisted with regard to the occupation. This was not the only post-war mischaracterization of the truth by the Bush Administration. Since then, they have been dogged by misstatements concerning the size and strength of the insurgency; the preparedness of Iraqi troops; the cost of the war; the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD); and the war's impact on terrorism, among other things.[24]

Another significant problem for the Bush Administration was its failure to find any of the WMD that it had used to justify the invasion. On July 6, 2003, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent to Niger at the behest of the CIA to investigate the uranium claim, wrote in an op-ed piece that the intelligence concerning Niger's alleged sale of uranium to Iraq was “twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”[25] The following day, the White House issued a rare retraction of the uranium allegations from the President's State of the Union Address.[26] Shortly thereafter, the identity of Wilson's wife, a covert CIA agent, was revealed in the press through a Robert Novak column sourced to two officials in the Administration.[27] Later in the year, Colin Powell also conceded that the information given in his February 5, 2003 speech before the UN “appear[ed] not to be . . . that solid.”[28] Capping these retractions were the findings of David Kay, the U.S. official responsible for the WMD search as the head of Iraq Survey Group, who concluded that “there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction. We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on.”[29]

Amid these admissions that the case for war was, generously speaking, faulty, the Administration and Congressional Republicans sought to pre-empt inquiries into the White House use or manipulation of intelligence by launching more limited investigations. On February 6, 2004, President Bush created the Robb-Silberman Commission, which later found that the intelligence community was “dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.”[30] However, this Commission was specifically prohibited from examining the use or manipulation of intelligence by policymakers.[31]

On March 16, 2004, the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform submitted a report to Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman.[32] This report, entitled “Iraq on the Record: the Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq,” details public statements made by senior Bush Administration officials regarding policy toward Iraq. The report indicates that “five officials made misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 125 public appearances. The report and an accompanying database identify 237 specific misleading statements by the five officials.”[33]

On July 7, 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported that it had found numerous failures in the intelligence-gathering and analysis process.[34] However, that review also was explicitly not intended to look into the Administration's use of that wrong intelligence in selling the war.[35] To date, there has never been a truly independent, comprehensive non-partisan or bipartisan review of the Administration's false claims regarding WMD or any other aspect of the war.[36]

On April 28, 2004, 60 Minutes II made public a series of photos taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq documenting apparent torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by U.S. military and other personnel.[37] Since then, reports of other alleged violations of international law involving Iraqi prisoners have been reported by the media and human rights organizations.[38]

As the war continued into 2005, with U.S. casualties approaching 1,500, Iraq held elections on January 30. The Administration heralded the elections as a symbol of freedom and as an event which validated the initial invasion. By that point, however, the reason for attacking Iraq had shifted from an imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction; to combating terrorism after the September 11, attacks; to regime change; and eventually to promoting democracy, and to ensure that those lives lost were not lost in vain.[39]

While evidence and accounts of Administration insiders strongly suggested a predetermination to go to war and a manipulation of intelligence to justify it, that evidence and those accounts were attacked by Administration officials as inaccurate or biased. Then, on May 1, 2005, the Sunday London Times published the first of a series of important documents known as the “Downing Street Minutes.”[40] The Downing Street Minutes (DSM) are a collection of classified documents, written by senior British officials during the spring and summer of 2002, which recounted meetings and discussions of such officials with their American counterparts. The focus of these meetings and discussions was the U.S. plan to invade Iraq. The DSM appear to document a pre-determination to go war with Iraq on the part of U.S. officials, and a manipulation of intelligence by such officials in order to justify the war.

The DSM generated significant media coverage in Great Britain in the lead up to the British elections, but initially received very little media attention in the United States. However, a concerted effort to call attention to them by Congressman John Conyers, Jr., and a number of Members of Congress, grassroots groups, and Internet activists was ultimately successful. On May 5, 2005, Congressman Conyers, the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, along with 87 other Members of Congress (eventually 121), wrote to the President demanding answers to the allegations presented in the Minutes.[41] In his letter, Representative Conyers questioned the President on whether there “was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to 'fix' the intelligence and facts around the policy.”[42]

On June 16, 2005, Congressman Conyers and 32 Members of Congress convened an historic hearing on the Downing Street Minutes, covered by numerous press outlets. The hearing was forced to a cramped room in the basement of the Capitol since Democrats were denied ordinary hearing room space by the Republican leadership. The Republicans tried to disrupt the hearings further by holding 12 consecutive floor votes during the hearing, an unprecedented number.[43] After the hearing, Congressman Conyers led a congressional delegation to the White House to personally deliver a letter signed by over 500,000 citizens, demanding answers from the President.[44] To date, the White House has declined to respond to these questions that were posed by these citizens and their elected representatives in Congress.

In the meantime, after some initial false starts, delays, and denials concerning possible misconduct in the Bush Administration's “outing” of Valerie Plame Wilson,[45] then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation due to conflicts of interest and, on December 30, 2003, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was appointed to conduct the investigation of the Plame leak.[46] By July 2005, it became apparent that Karl Rove, a senior aide to the President, was involved in the leak; a Time reporter's notes revealed that he had spoken to Karl Rove about the case.[47] Then, on July 18, 2005, President Bush conspicuously changed the standard for White House ethics from stating that he would fire anyone who leaked the information to firing someone only if he or she “committed a crime.”[48] With a lack of response from the Administration or from congressional Republicans, on July 22, 2005, Congressman Henry Waxman and Senator Byron Dorgan conducted a joint Democratic hearing on the “National Security Consequences of Disclosing the Identity of a Covert Intelligence Officer.”[49]

Ambassador Wilson was not the only individual facing apparent retribution from the Bush Administration for criticizing its conduct. For example, on August 27, 2005, Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Chief Contracting officer at the Army Corps of Engineers, was demoted in apparent retaliation for exposing Pentagon favoritism toward a Halliburton subsidiary in awarding no-bid contracts in Iraq.[50] As discussed later in this Report, a long line of individuals were subject to other forms of sanctions and retribution by the Administration for exposing Administration wrongdoing concerning Iraq.

On October 28, 2005, Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Scooter Libby resigned after a federal grand jury indicted him on five charges, totaling a maximum 30-year sentence, related to the leak probe.[51] Patrick Fitzgerald has yet to indict other individuals but has publicly stated that his investigation would remain open to consider other matters.[52] On November 1, 2005, after numerous attempts to open an investigation on the issue, Democrats demanded answers to the Administration's use of pre-war intelligence and led the Senate into a rare closed-door session, finally receiving a promise from the Republican majority to speed up the process.[53]

Since that time, numerous additional disclosures have come out calling into question the Bush Administration's pre-war veracity concerning WMD intelligence. On November 6, Senator Levin disclosed a classified Defense Department document showing that an al Qaeda prisoner, Iba al Shaykh al-Libi had been identified as a fabricator months before the Bush Administration used his claims to allege that Iraq had trained al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons.[54] On November 20, the Los Angeles Times revealed that German intelligence officials had informed the Administration that the Iraqi defector known as “Curveball” was not a reliable source for their mobile biological weapons charges.[55]

Today, more than half of all Americans believe the Administration “deliberately misled” the public on the reasons for going to war.[56] The invasion appears to have increased and emboldened the terrorist movement.[57] As of the date of this report, United States casualties are 2,138 and the Iraq war costs approximately $6 billion a month and by some estimates the eventual cost could approach a trillion dollars.[58]


III.   Detailed Factual Findings

A.   Determination to go to War before Congressional Authorization

There are numerous, documented facts now in the public record that indicate the Bush Administration had made a decision to go to war before it sought Congressional authorization or informed the American people of that decision.

Even though the Administration had begun planning an invasion of Iraq, the President and senior Administration officials continued to issue public denials regarding this effort, including misleading statements made before Congress:

	•	September 8, 2002: Vice President Dick Cheney insists that “first of all, no decision's been made yet to launch a military operation.”[59]
	•	September 16, 2002: US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld states “The President hasn't made a decision with respect to Iraq. Didn't I say that earlier? I thought I said that.”[60]
	•	September 19, 2002: Secretary of State Colin Powell states, “Of course, the President has not decided on a military option . . . nobody wants war as a first resort . . . [n]obody is looking for a war if it can be avoided.”[61]
	•	October 1, 2002: The President made the first in a series of statements, “Of course, I haven't made up my mind we're going to war with Iraq.”[62]
	•	November 7, 2002: “Hopefully, we can do this peacefully - don't get me wrong. And if the world were to collectively come together to do so, and to put pressure on Saddam Hussein and convince him to disarm, there's a chance he may decide to do that. And war is not my first choice, don't - it's my last choice.”[63]
	•	December 4, 2002: “This is our attempt to work with the world community to create peace. And the best way for peace is for Mr. Saddam Hussein to disarm. It's up to him to make his decision.”[64]
	•	December 31, 2002: “You said we're headed to war in Iraq - I don't know why you say that. I hope we're not headed to war in Iraq. I'm the person who gets to decide, not you.”[65]
	•	January 2, 2003: “First of all, you know, I'm hopeful we won't have to go war, and let's leave it at that.”[66]
	•	March 6, 2003: “I've not made up our mind about military action.”[67]
	•	March 8, 2003: “We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm peacefully, he will be disarmed by force.”[68]
	•	March 17, 2003: “Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it.”[69]

1.   Avenging the Father and Working with the Neo-Cons

“From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, 'Go find me a way to do this.'” -----January 11, 2004, Paul O'Neill, “60 Minutes”[70]

Our investigation has found, in retrospect, there were indications even before September 11, 2001 that President Bush and key members of his Administration were fixated on the military invasion of Iraq, regardless of the provocation. A key piece of the puzzle was revealed in a series of interviews between then-Governor Bush and writer and long-time family friend Mickey Herskowitz when, according to Herskowitz, Mr. Bush stated:

“'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. . . . My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. . . . If I have a chance to invade . . . if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it.'”[71]

According to Mr. Herskowitz, George W. Bush's beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion ascribed to now-Vice President Dick Cheney: “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.”[72]

In addition to Mr. Bush's apparent belief that a successful military invasion could cause him to be seen as a great leader, additional possible motivations include responding to those right-wing critics who blamed his father for not entering Baghdad during the first Gulf War,[73] and achieving revenge for Saddam Hussein's reported plot to assassinate his father. Discussing Saddam Hussein, on September 26, 2002, Bush declared: “After all, this is the guy that tried to kill my dad at one time.”[74]

It is also significant that key members of the Bush Administration were part of a group of so-called “neo-conservatives” or “neo-cons” who were dedicated to removing Saddam Hussein by military force. The notion of toppling Saddam Hussein and his regime dates as far back as the 1990s, when it had been a priority of a circle of neo-conservative intellectuals, led by Richard Perle, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, and Paul Wolfowitz, an Undersecretary of Defense for Policy under President George H.W. Bush.[75] The neocons did not have the power to effectuate their goals during the Clinton Administration, but they remained tied to one another and to Dick Cheney through a number of right-wing think tanks and institutes, including the Project for the New American Century.

On January 26, 1998, the Project for the New American Century issued a letter to President Bill Clinton explicitly calling for “the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power.”[76] Foretelling of subsequent events, the letter calls for the United States to go to war alone and attack the United Nations, and instructs that the United States should not be “crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.”[77] The letter was signed by 18 individuals; ten of them, including Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, became members of the current Bush Administration. Other documentary evidence of the neocon vision for an invasion is manifested by the December 1, 1997 issue of the Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, which was headlined by a bold directive: “Saddam Must Go: A How-to Guide.” Two of the articles were written by current Administration officials, including Paul Wolfowitz.[78]

In September 2000, a strategy document commissioned from the Project for the New American Century by Dick Cheney, argued that “[t]he United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”[79]

There is other evidence from within the highest levels of Bush's cabinet of an early fixation on invading Iraq. On 60 Minutes, former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reported that as early as January 30, 2001, members of the Bush Administration were discussing plans for Saddam Hussein's removal from power: “From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, 'Go find me a way to do this.'”[80]

This fixation on war with Iraq would seem to explain why, from the very beginning of the Bush Administration, key officials were consulting with outsiders on possible replacements for Saddam Hussein and contemplating possible means of exploiting Iraqi oil fields. For example, in February 2001, White House officials discussed a memo titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,” which talks about troop requirements, establishing war crimes tribunals, and divvying up Iraq's oil wealth.[81] During this time, Iraqi-born oil industry consultant Falah Aljibury was asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator. As Mr. Aljibury stated, “It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime, to stabilize the country.”[82] In March of 2001, a Pentagon document titled, “Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts” was circulated.[83] The document outlines areas of oil exploration and includes a table listing 30 countries that have interests in Iraq's oil industry. The memorandum also includes the names of companies that have interests and the oil fields with which those interests are associated.[84]

2.   September 11 and its Aftermath: Beating the Drums for War

“F*** Saddam. We're taking him out.” -----March, 2002, President George W. Bush, poking his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.[85]

It was the September 11 tragedy that gave the President and members of his Administration the political opportunity to invade Iraq without provocation. It was also in the immediate aftermath of September 11 that it became clear that the President had made up his mind to invade. We know this now for several reasons - we have first-hand evidence concerning President Bush's intentions; we have direct evidence concerning the intent of other senior members of his Administration; we have information provided through high-level Administration sources; and we have documentary and other evidence concerning specific actions taken by the United States military that brought our nation on the verge of war with Iraq before Congressional authorization was sought.

Donald Rumsfeld began pushing for retaliatory attacks against Iraq almost immediately after the September 11 attacks. CBS News reported that at 2:40 p.m. on September 11, Secretary Rumsfeld stated: “[I want the] best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden].”[86] Rumsfeld went on to say, “[g]o massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”[87] Spencer Ackerman and John Judis of The New Republic reported that, “Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz floated the idea that Iraq, with more than 20 years of inclusion on the State Department's terror-sponsor list, be held immediately accountable.”[88]

The very first evidence regarding President Bush's inclination to invade Iraq after the September 11 attacks occurred the very next day when he instructed National Security official Richard A. Clarke to go out of his way to find a link between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks. Richard Clarke recounts the following in his book, “Against All Enemies:”

[On September 12th] I left the Video Conferencing Center and there, wandering alone around the situation room, was the president. He looked like he wanted something to do. He grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room. 'Look,' he told us, 'I know you have a lot to do and all . . . but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way.' I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed. ‘But, Mr. President, al Qaeda did this.’ 'I know, I know, but . . . see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred’. . . . ‘Look into Iraq, Saddam,' the President said testily and left us. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty stared after him with her mouth hanging open.[89]

This inclination was evidenced to other senior Republicans as well. For example, Trent Lott observed in an interview on Meet the Press that shortly after September 11, the President made clear his intention to go after Iraq:

Well, beginning in August that year and into the fall--in fact, beginning not too long after 9/11--as we had leadership meetings at breakfast with the president, he would go around the world and talk about what was going on, where the threats were, where the dangers were, and even in private discussions, it was clear to me that he thought Iraq was a destabilizing force, was a danger and a growing danger, and that we were going to have to deal with that problem.[90]

We have also received confirmation of the Bush Administration's intention to invade Iraq after the September 11 attacks from various high-level Administration sources. For example, General Wesley Clark revealed on Meet the Press that shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House was asking people to link Saddam Hussein with the September 11 attacks. Clark stated:

[T]here was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein. . . . Well, it came from the White House . . . it came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein'. I said, 'But - I'm willing to say it but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence.[91]

On September 17, 2001, President Bush signed a 22-page document marked “TOP SECRET” that outlined the plan for going to war in Afghanistan as part of a global campaign against terrorism. As one senior Administration official commented, the direction to the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq appeared “almost as a footnote.”[92]

“On September 19 and 20, an advisory group known as the Defense Policy Board met at the Pentagon - with Secretary Rumsfeld in attendance - and discussed the importance of ousting Hussein.”[93] According to Administration sources:

They met in Rumsfeld's conference room. After a C.I.A. briefing on the 9/11 attacks, Perle introduced two guest speakers. The first was Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, a longtime associate of Cheney's and Wolfowitz's. Lewis told the meeting that America must respond to 9/11 with a show of strength: to do otherwise would be taken in the Islamic world as a sign of weakness-one it would be bound to exploit. At the same time, he said, America should support democratic reformers in the Middle East. “Such as,” he said, turning to the second of Perle's guest speakers, “my friend here, Dr. Chalabi” . . . . At the meeting Chalabi said that, although there was as yet no evidence linking Iraq to 9/11, failed states such as Saddam's were a breeding ground for terrorists, and Iraq, he told those at the meeting, possessed W.M.D. During the later part of the second day, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld listened carefully to the debate. “Rumsfeld was getting confirmation of his own instincts . . .” Perle says. “He seemed neither surprised nor discomfited by the idea of taking action against Iraq.”[94]

The 9-11 Commission Report further notes that as early as September 20, 2001, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, suggested attacking Iraq in response to the September 11 attacks. In a draft memo, Feith “expressed disappointment at the limited options immediately available in Afghanistan and the lack of ground options. [He] suggested instead hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, perhaps deliberately selecting a non-al Qaeda target like Iraq.”[95] Also, on September 20, it is reported that President Bush told Prime Minister Blair of the need to respond militarily with Iraq. Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror. As noted above, Bush replied, “I agree with you Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.”[96]

By late November 2001, the President essentially instructed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to develop an Iraq war plan, which Rumsfeld began to implement. In a CBS News 60 Minutes interview about his book, “Plan of Attack,” Bob Woodward describes their meeting:

President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically, and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, “What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.”[97]

The evidence of the President's determination to go to war continues on through 2002. On January 29, 2002, President Bush gave his State of the Union address in which he stated that Iraq was part of an “axis of evil” along with South Korea and Iran.[98] Although Administration officials sought to temper the meaning of that reference, the President's own speech writers have subsequently made it clear that the President was intending to target Iraq. As James Mann recounts: “David Frum, then one of Bush's speech writers, later claimed that the original aim of the axis-of-evil speech was specifically to target Iraq. Mark Gerson, Bush's chief speech writer had asked Frum first to find a justification for war against Iraq, he wrote; later Iran was added, and finally North Korea as a seemingly casual afterthought. Frum's perspective reflected both his inexperience as a speech writer and also the thinking of neoconservatives within the administration, who were eager for a regime change in Iraq.”[99]

We have also learned from three sources that beginning as early as February 2002, the Bush Administration took specific concrete steps to deploy military troops and assets into Iraq. First, in February 2002, Senator Bob Graham told the Council on Foreign Relations that a military commander had said to him: “Senator, we have stopped fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan. We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq.”[100]

Second, it is clear from Bob Woodward's book, “Plan of Attack” that the redeployment began in the summer of 2002, well before authorized by Congress:

On July 17, Franks updated Rumsfeld on the preparatory tasks in the region. He carefully listed the cost of each and the risk to the mission if they didn't proceed along the timeline which set completion by December 1. Total cost: about $700 million . . . . Later the president praised Rumsfeld and Franks for this strategy of moving troops in and expanding the infrastructure. “It was, in my judgment,” Bush said, “a very smart recommendation by Don and Tommy to put certain elements in place that could easily be removed and it could be done so in a way that was quiet so that we didn't create a lot of noise and anxiety.” . . . He carefully added, “The pre-positioning of forces should not be viewed as a commitment on my part to use military.” He acknowledged with a terse “Right. Yup.” that the Afghanistan war and war on terrorism provided the excuse, that it was done covertly, and that it was expensive . . . By the end of July, Bush had approved some 30 projects that would eventually cost $700 million. He discussed it with Nicholas E. Calio, the head of White House congressional relations. Congress, which is supposed to control the purse strings, had no real knowledge or involvement, had not even been notified that the Pentagon wanted to reprogram money.[101]

In his interview on 60 Minutes, Mr. Woodward himself points out this was a basic violation of the Constitution: “Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress.”[102] The funds were diverted from appropriation laws specifically allocated for the war in Afghanistan.[103]

Third, Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker received similar confirmation from his Administration sources of the reallocation of intelligence assets from Afghanistan to Iraq in preparation for an invasion: “The Bush Administration took many intelligence operations that had been aimed at Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world and redirected them to the Persian Gulf. Linguists and special operatives were abruptly reassigned, and several ongoing anti-terrorism intelligence programs were curtailed.”[104]

Further, beginning in February 2002, senior White House officials were also confirming to the press that military ouster of Saddam Hussein was inevitable. On February 13, 2002, Knight Ridder reported that, according to their sources, “President Bush has decided to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power and ordered the CIA, the Pentagon and other agencies to devise a combination of military, diplomatic and covert steps to achieve that goal, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday.”[105]

White House officials were also telling Seymour Hersh that the decision to go to war had been made and that a process to support that determination had been created:

By early March, 2002, a former White House official told me, it was understood by many in the White House that the President had decided, in his own mind, to go to war . . . . The Bush Administration took many intelligence operations that had been aimed at Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world and redirected them to the Persian Gulf. . . . Chalabi's defector reports were now flowing from the Pentagon directly to the Vice-President's office, and then on to the President, with little prior evaluation by intelligence professionals.[106]

Also, in March 2002, President Bush reportedly poked his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and said “F*** Saddam. We're taking him out.”[107] At the time, Rice was meeting with three U.S. Senators and discussing options for dealing with Iraq through the United Nations or other peaceful means. However, a source reported “Bush wasn't interested. He waved his hand dismissively . . . and neatly summed up his Iraq policy in that short phrase. The Senators laughed uncomfortably; Rice flashed a knowing smile.”[108]

By late March 2002, Vice President Cheney was telling his fellow Republicans that a decision to invade Iraq had been made:

Dick Cheney dropped by a Senate Republican policy lunch soon after his 10-day tour of the Middle East - the one meant to drum up support for a U.S. military strike against Iraq. . . . Before he spoke, he said no one should repeat what he said, and Senators and staff members promptly put down their pens and pencils. Then he gave them some surprising news. The question was no longer if the U.S. would attack Iraq, he said. The only question was when.”[109]

In his book, Bob Woodward describes Cheney as a “powerful, steamrolling force obsessed with Saddam and taking him out.”[110]

By July of 2002, Condoleezza Rice was offering further confirmation that President Bush's mind was made up regarding a decision to invade Iraq. At this time, State Department Director of Policy Planning Richard N. Haass held a meeting with Rice and asked if they should discuss Iraq. Rice said, “Don't bother. The president has made a decision.”[111]

We know that, in early August 2002, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair spoke by telephone and cemented the decision to go to war. A White House official who read the transcript of their conversation disclosed that war was inevitable by the end of the call. On August 29, 2002, after three months of war exercises conducted by the Pentagon, President Bush reportedly approved a document entitled “Iraq goals, objectives and strategy.”[112] The document cites far-reaching goals and the study refers to “some unstated objectives” including installing a pro-American government in Iraq and using it to influence events in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iran.[113]

Not only is it clear that a decision had been made to go to war in early 2002, it has also become apparent that the U.S. was actually engaging in acts of war by May 2002. On April 28, 2002, The New York Times wrote: “The Bush administration, in developing a potential approach for toppling President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, is concentrating its attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops. . . . Senior officials now acknowledge that any offensive would probably be delayed until early next year, allowing time to create the right military, economic and diplomatic conditions.”[114]

Bombing activity designed to increase military pressure on Iraq appears to have commenced by May 2002, and intensified in August 2002, following a meeting of the National Security Council.[115] The Sunday London Times reported that, “[b]y the end of August [2002] the raids had become a full air offensive.”[116] As former veteran CIA intelligence officer Ray McGovern testified:

The step-up in bombing was incredible. In March-April of 2002, there were hardly any bombs dropped at all. By the time September came along, several hundred tons of bombs had been dropped. The war had really started.[117]

On May 27, 2002, a former US Air Force combat veteran Tim Goodrich told the World Tribunal on Iraq jury in Istanbul, Turkey: “We were dropping bombs then, and I saw bombing intensify. All the documents coming out now, the Downing Street Memo and others, confirm what I had witnessed in Iraq. The war had already begun while our leaders were telling us that they were going to try all diplomatic options first.”[118] “Tommy Franks, the allied commander, has since admitted that this operation was designed to ‘degrade’ Iraqi air defenses in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf war.”[119]

The United States and Britain initially attempted to justify these raids by claiming that “the rise in air attacks was in response to Iraqi attempts to shoot down allied aircraft.”[120] However, in July 2005, in response to British MP Sir Menzies Campbell's request for data, the British Ministry of Defence released figures that would indicate that the true reason for the raids was to put pressure on the Iraqis.[121] The data shows that in “the first seven months of 2001 the allies recorded a total of 370 'provocations' by the Iraqis against allied aircraft. But in the seven months between October 2001 and May 2002 there were just 32.”[122] The records show that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did in the whole of 2001.[123]

The “secret air war” was also confirmed by Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley, who said that “in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 'carefully selected targets' before the war officially started.”[124] Between March and November 2002, coalition forces attacked Iraqi installations with 253,000 pounds of bombs. In June 2002 specifically, forces bombed Iraq with 20,800 pounds of munitions; in September 2002, the tonnage amounted to 109,200 pounds of bombs.[125]

3.   The Downing Street Minutes and Documentary Evidence of an Agreement to go to War

The Downing Street Minutes, which cover a time period from early March 2002 to July 23, 2002, provide the most definitive documentary evidence that the Bush Administration had not only made up its mind to go to war well before it sought congressional authorization, but that it had an agreement with the British government to do so. Collectively, the documents paint a picture of US and British officials eager to convince the public that war in Iraq was not a foregone conclusion, even as exacting plans for war were being laid. This section of the Report includes a description of each of the critical elements of these documents as they relate to that determination to go to war by the spring and summer of 2002 and details how the Downing Street Minutes have been confirmed and corroborated as accurate. (The Downing Street Minutes also include critical documentary evidence showing Bush and Blair Administration plans concerning “marketing” the war to the public and the United Nations, as well as the manipulation of intelligence, both of which are discussed later in this Report.)

a.   Description and Analysis of Various Downing Street Minutes Materials

“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.” “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.” -----July 23, 2002, The Downing Street Minutes[126]

Iraq: Options Paper (March 8, 2002)

This paper, prepared by the Office of the Overseas and Defense Secretariat, is the first of four documents written by various British authorities to prepare Prime Minister Blair for his early April trip to Crawford, Texas. The document includes the seeds of the upcoming war plan by the US and lays out a plan by which Iraq would reject a UN ultimatum, paving the way to war.

Besides summarizing various legal and political restraints, the paper warns Blair that a “legal justification for invasion would be needed. Subject to Law Officers advice, none currently exists.”[127] The document also states, “[t]he U.S. has lost confidence in containment. Some in government want Saddam removed. The success of Operation Enduring Freedom [the military code name for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan], distrust of UN sanctions and inspection regimes, and unfinished business from 1991 are all factors.”[128]

In this document, we learn of a nascent plan that the rejection of United Nations weapons inspectors by Iraq would provide the needed justification for war:

A refusal to admit UN inspectors, or their admission and subsequent likely frustration, which resulted in an appropriate finding by the Security Council could provide the justification for military action. Saddam would try to prevent this, although he has miscalculated beofre [sic]. . .[129]

Iraq: Legal Background Paper (Early March 2002)

This document, the second of four papers prepared to brief Prime Minister Blair for his upcoming Crawford trip, describes various legal doctrines believed to be at play with regard to military intervention in Iraq. The most significant aspect of this document is its revelation that the British government did not agree with the Bush Administration's belief that any State can enforce United Nations resolutions. The Bush Administration ultimately relied on this view to justify preemptive war one year later.

One analysis of Security Council Resolutions suggests that, while the British hold the view that “it is for [the Security] Council to assess whether any such breach of those obligations has occurred,” the United States has “a rather different view: they maintain that the assessment of breach is for individual member States. We are not aware of any other State which supports this view.”[130] The paper also notes that “for the exercise of the right of self-defence there must be more than 'a threat.' There has to be an armed attack actual or imminent.”[131]

David Manning Memo (March 14, 2002)

This memo was prepared by British national security advisor David Manning after having dinner with Condoleezza Rice. He observes that Ms. Rice is seen as an unalloyed advocate of military action against Iraq and again emphasizes how an ultimatum to Iraq on weapons inspectors could be helpful politically.

David Manning advises Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush had yet to find the answers to the “big” questions, such as: how to persuade international opinion that military action against Iraq is necessary and justified; what value to put on the exiled Iraqi opposition; how to coordinate a US/allied military campaign with internal opposition (assuming there is any); what happens on the morning after?[132]

Manning also wrote, “[t]he issue of the weapons inspectors must be handled in a way that would persuade European and wider opinion that the US was conscious of the international framework, and the insistence of many countries on the need for a legal base. Renwed refused [sic] by Saddam to accept unfettered inspections would be a powerful argument.”[133]

Manning also attempted to prepare Blair for his upcoming trip to Crawford: “I think there is a real risk that the Administration underestimates the difficulties. They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this really does not mean that they will avoid it.” The memo went on to say: “Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed.”[134]

The Meyer Memo (March 18, 2002)

In this memo from Christopher Meyer, the British Ambassador in Washington, to David Manning, we first learn that the British had agreed to join the Bush Administration in backing regime change through military action. The British also suggest giving Hussein an ultimatum that he would reject as a way of justifying war. In the memo, the Ambassador describes a lunch he recently had with Paul Wolfowitz, then US Deputy Secretary of Defense:

On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used with Condi Rice last week. We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe. The US could go it alone if it wanted to. But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrongnfoot [sic] Saddam on the inspectors and the UN SCRs [Security Council Resolutions] and the critical importance of the MEPP [Middle East Peace Process] as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy. If all this could be accomplished skilfully, we were fairly confident that a number of countries would come on board.[135]

Meyer goes on to note that “Wolfowitz said that it was absurd to deny the link between terrorism and Saddam.”[136] Meyer told Wolfowitz that “if the UK were to join the US in any operation against Saddam, we would have to be able to take a critical mass of parliamentary and public opinion with us.”[137]

Mr. Meyer had previously recalled that in the fall of 2001, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror. As noted above, Bush replied, “I agree with you Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.”[138] This statement of intent by President Bush with regard to Iraq was made at a private White House dinner between the leaders on September 20, 2001.

The Ricketts Memo (March 22, 2002)

Peter Ricketts, the Political Director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, wrote this memo to the U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as the third of four documents advising the Prime Minister on his trip to Crawford. This memo is an early indication that at least the British were concerned that unmanipulated intelligence did not provide a strong case for Iraq possessing dangerous WMD that could target the United States.

In the memo, Ricketts expressed relief at the postponement of the publication of a dossier that detailed the limited state of Iraq's weapons program: “My meeting yesterday showed that there is more work to do to ensuer [sic] that the figures are accurate and consistent with those of the U.S.”[139] Ricketts goes on to argue that “even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW [chemical weapons/biological weapons] fronts: the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.”[140]

Ricketts offered one final piece of advice: “The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programmes, but our tolerance of them post-11 September . . . attempts to claim otherwise publicly will increase scepticism about our case.”[141]

The Straw Memo (March 25, 2002)

U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote this final of four memos to Tony Blair before his April trip to Crawford.[142] The memo confirms once again that the Bush Administration anticipates military action to remove Saddam Hussein and again advocates the efficacy of delivering a legal ultimatum to Iraq. Straw emphasizes the need for a legal justification for military action, and the fact that “we have a long way to go” to convince the public that regime change is acceptable.[143]

According to Secretary Straw, the legal obstacles are difficult to surmount:

regime change per se is no justification for military action; it could form part of the method of any strategy, but not a goal. Of course, we may want credibly to assert that regime change is an essential part of the strategy by which we have to achieve our ends - that of the elimination of Iraq's WMD capacity: but the latter has to be the goal.[144]

Echoing the advice of Peter Ricketts, Straw notes that “[o]bjectively, the threat from Iraq has not worsened as a result of 11 September.”[145] Straw cautions Blair that “[t]he rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few” and that, while the U.S. has “assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq's WMD threat,” virtually no assessment “has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured, and how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be better.”[146] Straw also writes to Blair: “I believe that a demand for the unfettered readmission of weapons inspectors is essential, in terms of public explanation, and in terms of legal sanction for any subsequent military action.”[147]

The Cabinet Office Paper (July 21, 2002)

The British Cabinet Office prepared a briefing paper for participants at the upcoming July 23 meeting from which the Downing Street Minutes would be generated. The paper reiterates that Prime Minister Blair had already agreed to back military action to eliminate Saddam Hussein's regime at the April summit in Crawford, Texas and again confirms US determination to go to war.

The memo again highlights the need to make an ultimatum for Hussein that he would reject, and expresses concern about US preparedness for occupying Iraq:

[I]t is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action. Otherwise we face the real danger that the US will commit themselves to a course of action which we would find very difficult to support . . . US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia . . . [i]t is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject (because he is unwilling to accept unfettered access) and which would not be regarded as unreasonable by the international community . . . [a] post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the US military plans are virtually silent on this point.[148]

The Cabinet Office Paper also provides additional evidence of the concerted strategy to use the United Nations route as a pretext for war. The Paper confirms the now accepted notion that the United Nations could be used as an excuse for going to war, and broaches the idea of using the United Nations to create a legal deadline for military action. The Paper states, “[w]e need to set a deadline, leading to an ultimatum. It would be preferable to obtain backing of a UNSCR [United Nations Security Council Resolution] for any ultimatum and early work would be necessary to explore with Kofi Annan and the Russians, in particular, the scope for achieving this.”[149] Significantly, the Cabinet Office Paper goes on to conclude that the onus is on the United States to insure that the preconditions for war are met, writing, the Bush Administration would need to “creat[e] the conditions necessary to justify government military action . . .”[150]

The Downing Street Minutes (July 23, 2002)

The July 23, 2002 Downing Street Minutes, the most important and well publicized of the Downing Street Minutes materials - sometimes described as the “smoking gun memo” - is a document obtained from an undisclosed source that contains the minutes taken during a meeting among the highest officials in the United Kingdom government and defense intelligence figures. The British authorities discuss the build up to the Iraq invasion of March 2003, and it is clear to those attending that President Bush intends to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force. The minutes run through military options and then consider a political strategy by which an appeal for support would be positively received by the public. They again suggest that President Bush issue an ultimatum for Saddam to allow back United Nations weapons inspectors, and that this tactic would help to make the use of force legal. Tony Blair is quoted as saying that under these conditions the British public would support regime change.[151]

Perhaps the most important passage in the July 23 Minutes is a report of a recent visit to Washington by Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI-6 and known in official terminology as “C”:

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.[152]

The Minutes also record British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying, “the U.S. had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime.”[153] In addition, Foreign Secretary Straw articulates his idea for justifying an attack in light of the fact that Saddam was not threatening to attack his neighbors and his weapons of mass destruction program was less extensive than those of a number of other countries: “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.”[154]

The British realized they needed “help with the legal justification for the use of force” because, as the British Attorney General pointed out, “the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action.”[155] Moreover, the Attorney General stated that of the “three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or [United Nations Security Council] authorisation,” the first two “could not be the base in this case.”[156] In other words, Iraq was not attacking the United States or the United Kingdom, so the leaders could not claim to be acting in self-defense; nor was Iraq's leadership in the process of committing genocide, so the United States and the United Kingdom could not claim to be invading for humanitarian reasons. This left Security Council a