Disturbing British memo

There's an interesting memo circulating about the lead-up to the war in Iraq that's causing quite a stir. Apparently it's a summary of a meeting of top-level British officials (Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon, others), who are discussing the Iraq issue. The British government has not disputed the accuracy of this memo.

What's interesting about this memo is what they say about their American counterparts and their motivations. Here's a choice quote:

"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."

"The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

Later on, there was more:

"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided."

"But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

This memo was dated July 23rd, 2002, about nine months before the invasion. It's a rather insightful look into the reality of the situation and it seems to reinforce what Bob Woodward revealed in his book.

I guess this kind of thing scares me. I agree with the conservatives that Saddam was an evil man, who mistreated and abused his neighbours. I also agree that removing him is a net good. What bothers me, though, are two things.

Why was Saddam a huge priority at that time? We were heavily involved in Afghanistan and elsewhere trying to chase down Osama Bin Laden and the rest of Al Qaeda - why divert valuable resources to toppling Saddam? Why Iraq? Why not North Korea, which has actual, verifiable, nuclear weapons and is a far far scarier country. They are more of a threat than Saddam ever was, yet we don't invade them.

Second, I am very disturbed by the apparent fabrication of evidence. Why do I feel like I was lied to by this administration? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm sure they strongly believed Saddam was a bad man and that he dabbled in WMDs, but that's no excuse for incompetence. They failed to do a good job in analyzing the information available, and even when real experts testified that they were heading down the wrong path, they were dismissed and branded as not having America's interests at heart (Scott Ritter is a good example - http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.html is a good link).

I'm left with the feeling that either this administration is almost criminally incompentent (especially after seeing how they handled the reconstruction), or that they deliberately lied to us. I'm not sure which is worse, to be honest.

Here's the link to the original article:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/britain.war.memo/index.html