| The answer?
DowningStreetMemo.com.
In response to U.S. media silence surrounding the official
minutes of a pre-war meeting leaked on the eve of
the recent British elections, the foursome created a
website referencing the memo written in the heart of
British government, 10 Downing Street.
Authored by a foreign policy aide to British Prime
Minister Tony Blair, the minutes are perhaps the most
damning ammunition in the arsenal of those seeking to
demonstrate that the decision to go to war in Iraq was
fixed.
“Military action was now seen as inevitable,”
Blair aide Matthew Rycroft penned
in the account of a July, 2002 meeting. “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.”
Rycroft quoted Sir Richard Dearlove, director of British
Intelligence, MI6.
This remark inspired the creators of DowningStreetMemo.com.
“The memo itself is very good in that in a few
sentences it just summarizes the core of the problem,”
DowningStreetMemo co-creator Bob Fesmire told RAW
STORY. “It just lays bare the fact that we
were misled, in very simple terms, and from a very credible
source.”
Since the site’s creation the minutes have been
covered—albeit cursorily—by major American
newspapers and cable television outlets. The site has
four core founders: Georgia, a Chicago Law Student and
Kos diarist; Mike, a Canadian civil servant; Gina, a
California graphic designer; and her husband, Fesmire,
who works as a communications manager for a large technology
company. Others have also contributed research.
“The whole thing was germinated from a diary on
[Daily] Kos written by Georgia,” Fesmire said.
“If you look at the diary, it’s a discussion
about making a TV ad.”
Four hours later, a preliminary site was built.
“The whole thing came together very quickly,
and the momentum has carried it forward,” Fesmire
added.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman linked
to the site in his May 16 column; MichaelMoore.com made
it link of the week. It was recently
covered by Fesmire’s local NBC affiliate.
More than 130,000 have visited the site since its May
13 inception.
“The primary purpose of the site is just to act
as a resource,” Fesmire remarked. “While
I think its fair to say that [the site] leans to the
left, an effort was made to present the information
in a way that would not push away people of any particular
political stripe.”
“I think this issue transcends partisan politics,”
he added. “It’s important to our democracy.
To quote something from Georgia’s original post,
‘If the media won’t report on it, we will
take it directly to the viewers.’”
What stands out most about the minutes to the site’s
founders?
“I think that phrase, ‘But the intelligence
was being fixed around the policy,’” Fesmire
said. “The fact that the decision to go to war
was made in the summer of 2002 and that everything that
happened after that was really marketing.“
“I mean, we’re talking about taking a nation
to war,” he added. “It’s mind-boggling
how cavalier this administration has been about this
whole thing.”
Fesmire asserted that the site’s creators are
“realistic” in what they will be able accomplish,
given that Republicans—who have shielded the president
from serious inquiries about Iraq intelligence—control
both chambers of Congress.
“I think that people could become informed; I
would hope that the media would give it the credit that
it’s due,” he said. “From there, a
congressional hearing would be great. I think that would
be a very therapeutic outcome.”
But at the very least, he said that the site—and
the exposure given it by larger outlets—demonstrates
the ability of a small group to influence the discourse
of a nation.
“We may be separated physically, but the Internet
and specifically Daily Kos allows us to meet people
who are also concerned and in some cases take action,”
he remarked. “This project is an example of how
people who are thousands of miles apart can get something
done. It speaks to the power of the Internet and blogs
in particular.”
RAW STORY brought
attention to the minutes with a May
5 article detailing a letter signed by 89 House
members calling on President Bush to answer questions
about whether he misled the nation into Iraq (it was
88 at the time of our report).
“We have of course known for some time that subsequent
to the invasion there have been a variety of varying
reasons proffered to justify the invasion, particularly
since the time it became evident that weapons of mass
destruction would not be found,” the members,
led by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), wrote. “This
leaked document—essentially acknowledged by the
Blair government—is the first confirmation that
the rationales were shifting well before the invasion
as well.”
According to the Sunday
Times of London, Conyers is “considering sending
a delegation to London to investigate Britain’s
role in preparations for the war in Iraq.”
Clarification: An earlier version of this article
referred to the leaked Downing Street document as a
memorandum, which is how the site's creators have discussed
it. It is actually the official minutes of a government
meeting—considered a more reliable account than
a memorandum.
Article originally published May 22, 2005. |
