The truth about WMD lies beyond Hutton

Lord Hutton will report shortly on the 'circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly', but is likely to regard as beyond his remit such key questions as how the September 2002 dossier appears to include several dishonest claims and whether the country was falsely led into war. It is crucial, if Lord Hutton feels unable to tackle these central issues, that a separate judicial inquiry is now set up to establish beyond doubt what the truth really is and what the implications are for Britain's governance.
On 10 February last year, five weeks before the war started, the Government's Joint Intelligence Committee gave its assessment that there was no evidence that Iraq had provided chemical or biological weapons to al-Qaeda, though in the event of an imminent regime collapse 'there would be a risk of transfer of such material'; in other words an attack on Iraq would increase the risk of terrorism. Tony Blair did not disclose this briefing before the war, and it only became known when the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee released it on 11 September.

It is quite clear that throughout 2002 both Washington and London were actively seeking, contrary to intelligence assessments, evidence to justify the case for war. Four key items were deployed for this purpose. One was almost immediately exposed as plagiarised from a student thesis more than 10 years old. The other three were documents purporting to show that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium for nuclear bombs from Niger, the claim that Iraq was able to deploy WMDs within 45 minutes, and 'evidence' from a top-level Iraqi defector that Iraq had produced several tons of the deadly nerve agent VX.

Each of these raise worrying questions of credibility which require systematic investigation by an independent inquiry. However, enough of the facts are now known to draw some important conclusions.

More: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1115803,00.html

12/28/03: (The Times) "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.

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."

Scott Ritter claims that he as well as David Kelly were part of this campaign.

"Ritter was a willing accomplice to the alleged propaganda effort when first approached by MI6’s station chief in New York. He obtained approval to co-operate from Richard Butler, then executive chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq Disarmament.

Ritter met MI6 to discuss Operation Mass Appeal at a lunch in London in June 1998 at which two men and a woman from MI6 were present. The Sunday Times is prevented by the Official Secrets Act from publishing their names."

The use of MI6 as a “back channel” for promoting the government’s policies on Iraq was never discovered during the Hutton inquiry and is likely to cause considerable disquiet among MPs.

The problem here is that this may be making a case to get BushCo off the hook - blaming it on British intelligence (SOTU).

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5433.htm

This is a reprint of the article as The Times charges for viewing.

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