This should be really interesting...

Bush and Blair's emails and conversations before the Iraq War will be released.

We were always going to go to war with Iraq

But we knew this the minute Georgie was selected to be president in 2000:

In his evidence Mr Blair said he had always made clear to US president George Bush that he would be "up for" regime change in Iraq if it was the only way of dealing with Saddam Hussein.

He acknowledged that he had discussed ousting Saddam with Mr Bush as early as December 2001 - even though it was not then British policy.

The inquiry released a newly declassified document from March 2002 - a year before the invasion - in which Mr Blair said the UK should be "gung ho" about the prospect of getting rid of the Iraqi dictator.

This is how all leaders of superpower free world countries eat, right?

Via TRex at Firedoglake, a quote from Draper's biography of Bush:

His hot dog arrived. Bush ate rapidly, with a sort of voracious disinterest. He was a man who required comfort and routine. Food, for him, was fuel and familiarity. It was not a thing to reflect on.

“The job of the president,” he continued, through an ample wad of bread and sausage, “is to think strategically so that you can accomplish big objectives. As opposed to playing mini-ball. You can’t play mini-ball with the influence we have and expect there to be peace. You’ve gotta think, think BIG. The Iranian issue,” he said as bread crumbs tumbled out of his mouth and onto his chin, (Ewwwwwwww-ed.) “is the strategic threat right now facing a generation of Americans, because Iran is promoting an extreme form of religion that is competing with another extreme form of religion. Iran’s a destabilizing force.”

We've seen this behavior before, remember? Bush and Blair at the G8 summit?



Bush and Merkel? Bush and the press? Bush and the White House press?

Don't sign anything, Mr. Brown!

And don't do anything incriminating that can be used as blackmail while you are at Camp David!

PHILADELPHIA - The White House has confirmed that U.S. President George W. Bush will be meeting Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Camp David next week.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush and Brown "will focus on continuing to move forward on issues of shared interests and concerns." The meeting follows the installation of Brown as the new British Prime Minster last month.

He took over from Tony Blair who had pursued a close relationship with the US and had co-operated in every aspect of foreign policy issues. However Brown has indicated that he would not be an 'yes" man to the US and his main aim is to win back voters to the Labour fold.

With all that NSA spying, God knows what Bush and Cheney had on Blair....

Depends on whose business you're talking about....

Think Progress:

“Three mortar rounds or rockets exploded Saturday in the Green Zone, wounding one person, a U.S. official said. The blasts occurred after British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived there for talks with Iraqi leaders. Blair’s official spokesman downplayed the incident, saying there was ‘nothing to suggest anything other than business as usual.‘”

What's an explosion or two between colleagues? All in a day's work....

Blair sets timeline for British to leave Iraq

From AP:

LONDON (AP) -- Prime Minister Tony Blair will announce on Wednesday a new timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, with 1,500 to return home in several weeks, the BBC reported.

Blair will also tell the House of Commons during his regular weekly appearance before it that a total of about 3,000 British soldiers will have left southern Iraq by the end of 2007, if the security there is sufficient, the British Broadcasting Corp. said, quoting government officials who weren't further identified.

The BBC said Blair was not expected to say when the rest of Britain's forces would leave Iraq. Currently, Britain has about 7,100 soldiers there.

Britain has long been the most important coalition member in Iraq after the United States. But Blair knows the British public and politicians from his own Labour Party want the troops out as quickly as possible, and don't want to see Britain stick with the United States in Iraq for the long haul.

Militarily, a British withdrawal isn't likely to have much effect on the stepped-up U.S. operation in Baghdad or the war with the Sunnis in Anbar province west of the Iraqi capital. However, Iraqi forces could have a tough time maintaining security in mostly Shiite southern Iraq, including Basra city.

Blair's Downing Street office refused to comment on the BBC report, which also said Blair would tell the Commons that if the situation worsens on the ground on Iraq, his new game plan could change.

The announcement comes even as President Bush implements an increase of 21,000 more troops for Iraq.

I should be glad that the Brits are getting out, but it makes me nervous. Are they leaving because we're going to attack Iran?

Update: Glenn Greenwald quotes a commenter:

In comments, C&G suggests that Blair's decision may be grounded in an expectation of some sort of imminent conflict between the U.S. and Iran. That, of course, is pure speculation, but it certainly is the case that even cross-border incidents between U.S. troops and Iran, let alone larger-scale military confrontations, would leave British troops in Southern Iraq most vulnerable both to retaliatory attacks and the risk of inadvertent involvement. It is reasonable to assume (though an assumption is all it is) that the increasingly likely prospect of escalation played at least some role in the deliberations leading up to the British withdrawal announcement.

No! Do not read this! It has information! Stop that!

"The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey,
the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.

New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press."

And they are apparently silencing a former Bush Official from printing an op-ed on Iran:
Think Progress:
"Middle East analyst Flynt Leverett, who served under President Bush on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the New America Foundation, revealed today that the White House has been blocking the publication of an op-ed he wrote for the New York Times. The column is critical of the administration’s refusal to engage Iran."

And "Since September, the Bush administration has refused to tell Congress the numbers of enemy attacks in Iraq."

And Blair lied to the public about WMDs:
" A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

They have to shut down all information that might lead to someone having a thought. Kinda like how Bush operated at Yale.

Say what?

Sinfonian translates today's press conference with Blair and Bush for us.