Bill Crawford makes a simple yet essential point about the so-called “Downing Street Memo,” now being touted by the Bush-hating left as proof that the administration had already decided on war with Iraq by early 2002, and pulled strings and pressured foreign governments to make it happen: Update: Downing Street Memo.

The Times Online has more information confirming what I wrote about the Downing Street memo here. The Times Online has posted the text of a Cabinet Office paper that details the conditions for military action against Iraq, and unlike the Downing memo, this document is authentic. Recall that the Downing Street memo claimed that the Bush Administration had already decided on military action against Iraq in May of 2002 and that intelligence was going to be “fixed” to make the case for war. Here is how Editor & Publisher explained the substance of the Downing Street memo:

Seven months before the invasion of Iraq, the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that in Washington intelligence was ‘being fixed around the policy,’ according to notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting with Blair at No. 10 Downing Street.

And here is item 6 from the Cabinet paper:

Although no political decisions have been taken, US military planners have drafted options for the US Government to undertake an invasion of Iraq[underline added].

So the Cabinet Office paper, dated July 21, 2003 (two days before the Downing memo), makes it clear that the decision to go to war with Iraq had not yet been made. The fact that the Pentagon was working on plans for the war means nothing. There is probably a war plan for invading Canada somewhere on a dusty shelf in the Pentagon.