Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies

Intelligence agencies accuse Bush and Blair of distorting and fabricating evidence in rush to war

By Raymond Whitaker

27 April 2003

The case for invading Iraq to remove its weapons of mass destruction was based on selective use of intelligence, exaggeration, use of sources known to be discredited and outright fabrication, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

A high-level UK source said last night that intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were furious that briefings they gave political leaders were distorted in the rush to war with Iraq. "They ignored intelligence assessments which said Iraq was not a threat," the source said. Quoting an editorial in a Middle East newspaper which said, "Washington has to prove its case. If it does not, the world will for ever believe that it paved the road to war with lies", he added: "You can draw your own conclusions."

UN inspectors who left Iraq just before the war started were searching for four categories of weapons: nuclear, chemical, biological and missiles capable of flying beyond a range of 93 miles. They found ample evidence that Iraq was not co-operating, but none to support British and American assertions that Saddam Hussein's regime posed an imminent threat to the world.

On nuclear weapons, the British Government claimed that the former regime sought uranium feed material from the government of Niger in west Africa. This was based on letters later described by the International Atomic Energy Agency as crude forgeries.

On chemical weapons, a CIA report on the likelihood that Saddam would use weapons of mass destruction was partially declassified. The parts released were those which made it appear that the danger was high; only after pressure from Senator Bob Graham, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was the whole report declassified, including the conclusion that the chances of Iraq using chemical weapons were "very low" for the "foreseeable future".

On biological weapons, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, told the UN Security Council in February that the former regime had up to 18 mobile laboratories. He attributed the information to "defectors" from Iraq, without saying that their claims – including one of a "secret biological laboratory beneath the Saddam Hussein hospital in central Baghdad" – had repeatedly been disproved by UN weapons inspectors.

On missiles, Iraq accepted UN demands to destroy its al-Samoud weapons, despite disputing claims that they exceeded the permitted range. No banned Scud missiles were found before or since, but last week the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, suggested Scuds had been fired during the war. There is no proof any were in fact Scuds.

Some American officials have all but conceded that the weapons of mass destruction campaign was simply a means to an end – a "global show of American power and democracy", as ABC News in the US put it. "We were not lying," it was told by one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." American and British teams claim they are scouring Iraq in search of definitive evidence but none has so far been found, even though the sites considered most promising have been searched, and senior figures such as Tariq Aziz, the former Deputy Prime Minister, intelligence chiefs and the man believed to be in charge of Iraq's chemical weapons programme are in custody.

Robin Cook, who as Foreign Secretary would have received high-level security briefings, said last week that "it was difficult to believe that Saddam had the capacity to hit us". Mr Cook resigned from the Government on the eve of war, but was still in the Cabinet as Leader of the House when it released highly contentious dossiers to bolster its case.

One report released last autumn by Tony Blair said that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes, but last week Mr Hoon said that such weapons might have escaped detection because they had been dismantled and buried. A later Downing Street "intelligence" dossier was shown to have been largely plagiarised from three articles in academic publications. "You cannot just cherry-pick evidence that suits your case and ignore the rest. It is a cardinal rule of intelligence," said one aggrieved officer. "Yet that is what the PM is doing." Another said: "What we have is a few strands of highly circumstantial evidence, and to justify an attack on Iraq it is being presented as a cast-iron case. That really is not good enough."

Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge University analyst who first pointed out Downing Street's plagiarism, said ministers had claimed before the war to have information which could not be disclosed because agents in Iraq would be endangered. "That doesn't apply any more, but they haven't come up with the evidence," he said. "They lack credibility."

Mr Rangwala said much of the information on WMDs had come from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC), which received Pentagon money for intelligence-gathering. "The INC saw the demand, and provided what was needed," he said. "The implication is that they polluted the whole US intelligence effort."

Facing calls for proof of their allegations, senior members of both the US and British governments are suggesting that so-called WMDs were destroyed after the departure of UN inspectors on the eve of war – a possibility raised by President George Bush for the first time on Thursday.

This in itself, however, appears to be an example of what the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix called "shaky intelligence". An Iraqi scientist, writing under a pseudonym, said in a note slipped to a driver in a US convoy that he had proof information was kept from the inspectors, and that Iraqi officials had destroyed chemical weapons just before the war.

Other explanations for the failure to find WMDs include the possibility that they might have been smuggled to Syria, or so well hidden that they could take months, even years, to find. But last week it emerged that two of four American mobile teams in Iraq had been switched from looking for WMDs to other tasks, though three new teams from less specialised units were said to have been assigned to the quest for "unconventional weapons" – the less emotive term which is now preferred.

Mr Powell and Mr Bush both repeated last week that Iraq had WMDs. But one official said privately that "in the end, history and the American people will judge the US not by whether its officials found canisters of poison gas or vials of some biological agent [but] by whether this war marked the beginning of the end for the terrorists who hate America".

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=400805

...set new lows for an already dishonest Government.

It is no longer "...Government of the People, by the People, and for the People."

It is now Government of the Elites, by the Elites, and for the Elites.

May God have mercy on us all.

Diogenes, the last thing the world needs is another religious zealot trying to impose his/her religious viewpoint on us. . . you and Falwell can go to heck.

You have an odd recolection of history..

it was NEVER government of the people for the people by the people.

that was just an idealist trying to make up a catchy quote

...blow it out your ass, you camel fucker.

TO AGNOSTES

Like all Bigots you reveal yourself for what you are by assuming that everyone shares equally your intolerance for other people's beliefs.

If you do not share my beliefs then you have my permission to not share my beliefs.

Because one believes in the existence of a God does imply the belief in any particular Dogma. You infer something not based on any evidence other than your own prejudices.

Your intolerant association with Jerry Foulwell is therefore not justified.

You are an anti-Religous BIGOT.



To Scottie: May I commend to your reading list “The Gettysburg Address”. Lord have Mercy!

I know where it was from.

Im surprised that you believe a statement, which glorifies the "invasion" of a bad but not REALLY BAD reigeme that wanted self determination, should be compulsary reading to all good people.

seems like the man has sucked you in with his propoganda... either that or you were secretly for the war in Iraq.

yes the "The Gettysburg Address" should be compulsary reading for all people in all counties as an example of "how things have to be done around here now that the USA is the boss".

HOWEVER Cynasism aside...

the USA is closer to "...Government of the People, by the People, and for the People." than almost any other government in the world. And also much better than the USA used to be. Do you remember when women did not have the vote? or when people at large had negligable political knowledge? (ok maybe they still do but we are getting better)

But if you think that it isnt - "...Government of the People, by the People, and for the People." now then it was never like that. I defy you to prove that it was.

You dont think Lincon worked on his speach with the idea of making catchy quotes for people like you to use in the future?

the man has SO got your number..... even if he is Lincon.

Go fuck a camel, you towelhead.

...is a work in progress. Have we not always lived up to our ideals? Sadly, no. However, despite all of it's manifest defects we have had one of the freest and most open societies in recorded memory. Does that relieve us of the duty to strive to do better. In my opinion the answer is a resounding no.

Lincoln was in many ways a very cynical man. One who mean't well and generally tried to do good. His memory has been varnished and tarnished over time. Having said that I think fundamental truths are still true regardless of whether given voice by a cynical man in the midst of an awful Civil War. Fundamental truism still retain their validity regardless of who utters them.

And so it remains. We, have had, until recent memory a "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people". That was the legacy bequeathed to us by men like Washington, Jefferson, Hancock, and Hamilton. There was a haunting caveat uttered by Benjamin Franklin to a Woman standing by the entrance to the old Courthouse in Philadelphia that we now know as Constitution Hall. She asked him as he exited that hall: "Are we to have a King then Sir?" His terse reply was: "No Madam, a Republic. If you can keep it."

>"Government of the people, by the people, and for the people"

We still do. If someone wants to believe we have "Government on the lake, in the boat, near the reeds, and with live bait" they are free to do so. If we didn't have "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people" you wouldn't be allowed to express that you believe otherwise.