Revealed: how MI6 sold the Iraq war

THE Secret Intelligence Service has run an operation to gain public support for sanctions and the use of military force in Iraq. The government yesterday confirmed that MI6 had organised Operation Mass Appeal, a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

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The admission followed claims by Scott Ritter, who led 14 inspection missions in Iraq, that MI6 had recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort. He described meetings where the senior officer and at least two other MI6 staff had discussed ways to manipulate intelligence material.

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Ritter had previously met the MI6 officer at Vauxhall Cross, the service’s London headquarters. He asked Ritter for information on Iraq that could be planted in newspapers in India, Poland and South Africa from where it would “feed back” to Britain and America.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-944831,00.html

Looks like setting up MI6 as fall guys when Hutton Report is published, a smear of Scott Ritter, but an interesting detail about the placement of stories in foreign countries so that they work their way back home.

So MI6 has been running a disinformation program since 1997?

Is that where all the "proof" originated?

No wonder Blair is jittery. If this story is true there is no way on God's green earth that he didn't know it. If this story is true he played Dubya like some backwoods yokel standing slackjawed and amazed the first time he saw a skyscraper.

Oh, Lord! Let this be true. Puhleease...

And in passing, doesn't anyone notice how much trouble and discord has been caused by the Brits and their meddling in the affairs of other nations and peoples.

It isn't just the Irish this time.

would turn out to be such a disappointment?

No wonder he looks like at any moment he's going to have nervous breakdown. Especially, since David Kelly got killed.

threat? Should it be believed or not?

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8275843%255E912,00.html

AL-QAIDA has turned its terror sights to the sea, targeting luxury cruise liners in a major expansion of its jihad against Western interests.

And top of the terror network's list of ocean-bound targets is the new $1.3 billion Queen Mary 2.

QM2 owner Cunard confirmed it had received a terrorist threat against its maiden voyage in the new year.

Concerns al-Qaida had opened up a new front in its terror campaign emerged when a US spy plane discovered scores of acoustic sea mines had disappeared from a high-security naval base in North Korea.

All the information which is coming out points to something they cooked up together at the first Camp David meeting. The only reason for their "lockstep" support of each other would be an alliance against the EU which would keep the dollar and the pound in float against the Euro.

And, that comes down to the "Oil" situation where we know Iraq had been making moves to go to the Euro along with Russia. Its some kind of "power play" and PNAC is involved somehow there in the background.

British spies 'misled' media on Iraq
By Nicholas Rufford, The Sunday Times, and Bernard Lane
December 29, 2003

Britain's intelligence services ran a publicity campaign to gain support for sanctions and the use of military force in Iraq, it has emerged.

The Government confirmed at the weekend that MI6 had organised Operation Mass Appeal, a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

The revelation will create embarrassing questions for Tony Blair in the run-up to the publication of the report by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of government weapons expert David Kelly.

A senior official admitted that MI6 had been at the heart of a campaign launched in the late 1990s to spread information about Saddam's development of nerve agents and other weapons, but denied that it had planted misinformation. "There were things about Saddam's regime and his weapons that the public needed to know," the official said.

(more)

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8274062%255E2703,00.html

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Confirmed: UK sexed up WMDs
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2003 10:55:57 PM

LONDON: The British government has confirmed that MI6 had organised Operation Mass Appeal, a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

The revelation will create embarrassing questions for Tony Blair in the run-up to the publication of the report by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly , the government weapons expert.

A senior official admitted that MI6 had been at the heart of a campaign launched in the late 1990s to spread information about Saddam's development of nerve agents and other weapons, but denied that it had planted misinformation.

"There were things about Saddam's regime and his weapons that the public needed to know," said the official.

The admission followed claims by Scott Ritter, a former US marine who led 14 inspection missions in Iraq, who said that MI6 had recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort.

He described meetings where the senior officer and at least two other MI6 staff had discussed ways to manipulate intelligence material.

"The aim was to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was," Ritter said last week.

(more)

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/387882.cms