The Downing Street documents
The Downing Street documents are a set of documents leaked to journalist Michael Smith in 2004 and 2005, of which the most significant is generally believed to be a record of a meeting at 10 Downing Street in July 2002.
See the full set of papers on the After Downing Street website
About the documents
Are the documents genuine?
There is no doubt that the papers are genuine. Christopher Meyer, who was UK ambassador to Washington at the time and author of one of the documents, has confirmed their authenticity in his book “DC Confidential”.
What do they show?
The papers show that UK government officials were planning from at least early 2002 to take part in the anticipated US invasion of Iraq.
Were they seen by previous inquiries?
The Hutton Inquiry makes no reference to the papers. The Butler Review either quotes from or describes the contents of many of the documents but it is not certain that it saw them all. Neither is it clear that it accurately reported their contents. Read more
The list of papers
In each case, the first link is to the document on the afterdowningstreet.org website. The second “Read more” link is an analysis of each document and its significance.
March 2002 Cabinet Office options paper
The March 2002 options paper was drawn up by the Cabinet Office Defence and Overseas Secretariat. Read more
March 2002 legal background paper
A legal paper was attached to the March 2002 options paper. This discussed the various justifications for an invasion but did not find any of them applicable.
David Manning memo March 2002
On 14 March 2002, David Manning, head of the Cabinet Office Defence and Overseas Secretariat and chief foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair, sent Blair a memorandum describing his discussions at dinner with Condoleezza Rice, who was then the national security adviser in the Bush administration. Manning told Blair: “I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. ” Read more
Christopher Meyer letter March 2002
On 18 March 2002, Christopher Meyer, the UK ambassador to Washington, sent David Manning a letter detailing his discussions at lunch the previous day with Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy secretary of defense. He told Manning: “On Iraq I opened by sticking very closely to the script that you used [with] Condi Rice last week. We backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option.” Read more
Peter Ricketts letter March 2002
On 22 March 2002, Peter Ricketts, political director of the Foreign Office, sent a letter to foreign secretary Jack Straw. He told Straw: “even the best survey of Iraq’s WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or [Chemical Warfare/Biological Warfare] fronts.” Read more
Jack Straw memo to Blair March 2002
On 25 March 2002, Jack Straw sent Tony Blair a memo with advice in advance of Blair’s visit to George Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. He stressed the need to present the elimination of Iraq’s WMD capacity, rather than regime change, as the objective of UK policy. Read more
Cabinet Office briefing paper July 2002
On 21 July 2002, officials at the Cabinet Office Overseas and Defence Secretariat produced a briefing paper entitled “Iraq: conditions for military action” in advance of the meeting at Downing Street two days later. Read more
Downing Street memo July 2002
The Downing Street memo is a note of a meeting on 23 July 2002 to discuss UK involvement in the US invasion of Iraq. Read More
Back to the Evidence
7 Responses to “The Downing Street documents”
Pingback from Photomaniacal » Blog Archive » Iraq inquiry’s game-changing evidence | Chris Ames
Time November 26, 2009 at 4:56 pm
[...] with the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Leaked documents, most notably the Downing Street documents, show that the policy was to go along with the US desire for regime change and use weapons of mass [...]
Pingback from Iraq Inquiry: Sir Christopher Meyer Confirms That Iraq War Was Illegal by Andy Worthington « Dandelion Salad
Time November 26, 2009 at 9:59 pm
[...] to deal with the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Leaked documents, most notably the Downing Street documents, show that the policy was to go along with the US desire for regime change and use weapons of mass [...]
Pingback from Iraq inquiry’s game-changing evidence | Chris Ames | discovertexarkana.com
Time November 27, 2009 at 7:00 am
[...] with the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Leaked documents, most notably the Downing Street documents, show that the policy was to go along with the US desire for regime change and use weapons of mass [...]
Pingback from Photomaniacal » Blog Archive » Alastair Campbell: his master’s voice | Chris Ames
Time January 12, 2010 at 5:03 pm
[...] If Chilcot was in any doubt that the inquiry is hamstrung by its failure to refer to documents, many of which have been leaked anyway, this morning, it surely should have grasped [...]
Pingback from Alastair Campbell: his master’s voice | Chris Ames | discovertexarkana.com
Time January 12, 2010 at 5:45 pm
[...] If Chilcot was in any doubt that the inquiry is hamstrung by its failure to refer to documents, many of which have been leaked anyway, this morning, it surely should have grasped [...]
Pingback from Alastair Campbell: His master’s voice : Bloggii – The Global News Aggregator
Time January 12, 2010 at 7:07 pm
[...] If Chilcot was in any doubt that the inquiry is hamstrung by its failure to refer to documents, many of which have been leaked anyway, this morning, it surely should have grasped [...]
Pingback from Iraq inquiry: Sir Christopher Meyer Confirms That Iraq War Was Illegal | Andy Worthington
Time November 26, 2009 at 2:50 pm
[...] to deal with the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Leaked documents, most notably the Downing Street documents, show that the policy was to go along with the US desire for regime change and use weapons of mass [...]