August 26, 2005—Although the revelation received predictably little attention in America's corporate media on May 1, the Times of London reported on a top secret internal British government memo that proves that George W. Bush was lying through his teeth when he took this nation to war in Iraq.

The leaked memo is now known as the "Downing Street Memo," referring to the prime minister's residence. Its authenticity has not been challenged by Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, nor by the Bush administration. The memo is actually the minutes of a briefing given to Blair's cabinet by the head of MI6—Britain's equivalent to the CIA—in July 2002, shortly after he returned from a trip to the US.

According to this document, the intelligence chief "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."

Contemplate that last sentence carefully. "intelligence" and "facts" were being "fixed."

Not only does this memo confirm the pre-war statements of former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro and retired Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, that the Bush regime was "cooking the books" on WMD evidence. It also puts the lie to the report from the Bush-appointed Silberman-Robb commission that allegedly exonerated the criminals in the White House from any responsibility for intelligence failures—without the pre-war political use of WMD intelligence as part of the commission's "investigation."

The Downing Street Memo also clearly explains why the Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee has indefinitely postponed his promise to investigate (right after the election, he said in 2004) the relationship between White House policy and faulty intelligence.

In addition, this "smoking gun" memo gives credence to the accounts of former Bush insiders, such as Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, that Bush and Dick Cheney were fixated on invading Iraq even before the 9/11 attacks. And at the very least, it shows that Bush's frequent assertions prior to the invasion that "no decision" had been made on military action, and that war was a "last resort," were nothing but ruthless, cynical, bald-faced lies.

Recent polls indicate a substantial majority of Americans no longer think that the cost of war in Iraq—over 1,8 00 American lives, thousands of American limbs, over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, and over a billion taxpayer dollars a week—is worth it.

The only question remaining is: when will this criminal be impeached?

Michael Hasty is currently suing the speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates and Senate president, to change the form of Hampshire County, WV's local government (see 8/17/05 Charleston Gazette editorial section); starting a West Virginia chapter of Veterans for Peace; and performing with his new band, the Time Travelers, a harmonious blend of gospel, folk and old-time music. Email: michaelhasty@hotmail.com .