Bride of the Downing Street Memo

Okay, I know most of the blogs I regularly read have covered the newly-leaked Cabinet Office briefing papers, and the Washington Post's prominent discussion thereof.

I did feel that there was one point worth making, which I hadn't seen covered. In the Post article, the focus is largely on the impression of the Brits that the Bush Administration seemed to have completely neglected planning the post-fighting occupation.

But the focus of the article in the UK TimesOnline focuses more on the fact that it was not lost on many of the players that there were some serious questions about the legality of the whole undertaking. I think the first sentence of the article sums things up nicely:

"MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. "

So, to summarize: By mid-2002, not only had the decision to invade Iraq been made, but the British were already locked into *some* degree of commitment and they were worrying about how to put some kind of legal fig-leaf on the operation, and they were also already noticing that the Administration seemed to be completely ignoring and underestimating the post-invasion occupation. Whomever leaked these documents really needs to work on their timing, methinks.

Regardless, I'm curious to see how the "find a way to make this thing legal" aspect of the story plays out on this side of the pond.