AP, Thank God, Covers Big Brit Scoop

I guess this confirms the Downing Street Memo, as if it needed it. I tweeted the breaking story last night, and now AP has covered it. What it leaves out is Brit press linking it more to Bush and suggestions that officials in both government's deserve war crimes consideration. Here's full AP story, opening below:

Leaked British government documents call into question ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's public statements on the buildup to the Iraq war and show plans for the U.S.-led 2003 invasion were being made more than a year earlier, a newspaper says.

Britain's Sunday Telegraph published details of private statements made by senior British military figures claiming plans were in place months before the March 2003 invasion, but were so badly drafted they left troops poorly equipped and ill-prepared for the conflict.

The documents — transcripts of interviews from an internal defense ministry review of the conflict — disclose that some planning for the Iraq war had begun in February 2002. Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, then head of Britain's special forces, was quoted as saying he had been "working the war up since early 2002," according to the newspaper.

In July 2002, Blair told lawmakers at a House of Commons committee session that there were no preparations to invade Iraq.