MENDACITY  (CONT)

"extremely sensitive." The document shows Bush and Blair had already decided to go to war in Iraq a year before the invasion.

All the subsequent moves -- asking for a UN Security Council resolution, more weapons inspections, Bush's speeches to Congress and the case he presented to the American people -- were all ruses, hollow lies. He and his buddy Blair were already committed to war and their words in public were meaningless. The die was cast.

The words of Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, blow the lid off the lies. Known as "C" in spy talk, his read on the U.S. position contained in the memo tells all.

It states, "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wants to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. The NSC (National Security Council) has no patience with the UN route. There is little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw buttresses Sir Richard's views at the same meeting. "The Foreign Secretary said he will discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush 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 neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran," the meeting minutes note.

This document is dynamite. As Joe Conason writes in "Salon" online magazine, it has received little notice outside the U.K. "Are Americans so jaded about the deceptions perpetrated by our own government to lead us into war in Iraq that we are no longer interested in fresh and damming evidence of those lies?"

George W. Bush lied to the world when he said he sought peace in Iraq and war was a "last resort." That's what historians will write and they now have a document proving it.

Journalism is often called the first draft of history. For the most part, America's big corporate media's first draft of Bush's war has been devoted to his propagating lies. That's very dangerous in a fragile democracy.

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