MAINSTREAM MEDIA LINKS: -

• Downing Street Memo Mostly Ignored in U.S. - WASHINGTON — A British government memo that critics say proves the Bush administration manipulated evidence about weapons of mass destruction in order to carry out a plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein (search) has received little attention in the mainstream media, frustrating opponents of the Iraq war. The "Downing Street Memo" — first published by The Sunday Times of London on May 1 — summarizes a high-level meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair (search) and his senior national security team on July 23, 2002, months before the March 2003 coalition invasion of Iraq. The memo suggests that British intelligence analysts were concerned that the Bush administration was marching to war on wobbly evidence that Saddam posed a serious threat to the world.

• The Downing Street Memo Story Won't Die - More than a month after its publication, the so-called Downing Street Memo remains among the top 10 most viewed articles on The Times of London site. It's not hard to see why this remarkable document, published in The Times on May 1 (and reported in this column on May 3), continues to attract reader interest around the world, especially with British Prime Minister Tony Blair visiting Washington Tuesday. The July 2002 memo, labeled "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY," reports the views of "C," code name for Richard Dearlove, the chief of British intelligence. Dearlove had just retuned from a visit with Bush administration officials eight months before the war in Iraq began.

• Kerry Touts Bush Impeachment Memo - Failed presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that he intends to confront Congress with a document touted by critics of President Bush as evidence that he committed impeachable crimes by falsifying evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "When I go back [to Washington] on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," Kerry said, referring to the Downing Street Memo in an interview with Massachusetts' Standard Times newspaper.    (COMMENTARY:  Turning this from a 'right vs. wrong' issue that most people can relate to, the establishment wants to use Democrat Kerry to turn this into a phoney 'right vs. left' issue in which they can control the outcome)

• The Downing Street memo, top secret no more - The Downing Street memo caused a major uproar when it was published on the eve of Britain's general election. Some experts believe it was one of the reasons that caused Blair to lose support in constituencies and resulted in the loss of Labour's majority in the house of parliament.    (Alternative Backup Link)

• Afraid to tell the truth - A secret memo publicized in Britain confirms the lies on which Bush based his Iraq policy. Why has it received so little notice in the U.S. press?

• Why has 'Downing Street memo' story been a 'dud' in US? - A mid-2002 British memo saying US was planning to 'fix' intelligence to fit plans to invade Iraq has not been big news. 

ALTERNATIVE NEWS REPORTS: -

• IMPEACHMENT TIME: "FACTS WERE FIXED." - The top-level government memo marked "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL," dated eight months before Bush sent us into Iraq, following a closed meeting with the President, reads, "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."

OTHER HELPFUL RESOURCES: -

• WIKIPEDIA: Downing Street memo

• http://www.afterdowningstreet.org - For a Resolution of Inquiry

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