Sunday, June 05, 2005

AJR on Lee

AJR has a lengthy piece on Lee Enterprises. The company gets at least two cheers, with a grade of incomplete. The Montana angle is fairly weak, but the piece generally describes the company I know: not awful, but not much to get excited about either. One piece of luck for Lee: So many other newspaper companies are getting worse so fast that Lee keeps looking better by comparison.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections."
"The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had 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. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force."
"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

The above is a small excerpt from the "minutes" taken during a top level meeting between Tony Blair and the UK's Military advisors, two of which had just returned from meetings with Bush, Rumsfield and others concerning Iraqi policy, in June of 2002. The British Government has confirmed the authenticity of the minutes and the information contained in them. Obviously, the record tells us that the Bush Administration was set on invading Iraq and " the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. "
Bush lied to the American people. While Americans seem to have seen it fitting to impeach Clinton over a lie, apparently lying by Bush, lies which have cost us 1670 Soldiers' lives, do not matter.
Too bad this very timely and important information hasnt been provided to your readers. Its been available since May 1st.

But you wont see this in a Lee paper nor the 'post....