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What's in the Downing Street Memo?
16 Jun 2005 17:54:25 GMT

Source: Reuters

LONDON, June 16 (Reuters) - The Downing Street memo produced for British Prime Minister Tony Blair in July 2002 portrayed President George W. Bush as inevitably invading Iraq and said "intelligence and facts" were being fixed eight months before the March 2003 invasion. Bush and Blair dismissed this.

Here are some key facts on the Memo:

** Blair's staff produced the eight-page July 21, 2002, memo in preparation for the prime minister's meeting with his national security staff two days later at Downing Street.

** Britain's spy chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, had concluded that war was "inevitable" because "(President) Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action," and "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

** According to the minutes, Blair spoke to his cabinet explicitly in terms of toppling Saddam - "If the political context were right, people would support regime change," Blair is recorded as saying. "The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work."

** Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the case for war was "thin" because "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

Straw proposed giving Saddam an ultimatum to allow in U.N. weapons inspectors, provoking a confrontation that would "help with the legal justification for the use of force."

** Blair ordered his chief of defense staff, Sir Michael Boyce, to present him with war plans later that week.