In the spring of 2002, two weeks before British Prime Minister    Tony Blair journeyed to Crawford, Tex., to meet with    President Bush at his ranch about the escalating confrontation with    Iraq, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sounded a prescient warning.

ADVERTISEMENT

According to today's news, the 'Downing Street memo' was but one of a number. What bugs me is how accepting and blase we are and have been, with this kind of leaked information, on both sides of the water.


The Whole Thing


"The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few," Straw wrote in a March 25 memo to Blair stamped "Secret and Personal." "The risks are high, both for you and for the Government."

In public, British officials were declaring their solidarity with the Bush administration's calls for elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Straw's memo and seven other secret documents disclosed in recent months by British journalist Michael Smith together reveal a much different picture. Behind the scenes, British officials believed the U.S. administration was already committed to a war that they feared was ill-conceived and illegal and could lead to disaster.