The American-controlled Iraqi government doesn't want the truth to get out

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13386

so journalists are being killed or arrested in alarming numbers. Al-Jazeera has been banned from Iraq for over a year and only US controlled media can report directly from Iraq.

http://www.tompaine.com/20050504/articles/proof_bush_fixed_the_facts.php

<snip>
In emotionless English, Dearlove tells Blair and the others that President Bush has decided to remove Saddam Hussein by launching a war that is to be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction." Period. What about the intelligence? Dearlove adds matter-of-factly, "The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

At this point, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw confirms that Bush has decided on war, but notes that stitching together justification would be a challenge, since "the case was thin." Straw noted that Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

In the following months, "the case" would be buttressed by a well-honed U.S.-U.K. intelligence-turned-propaganda-machine. The argument would be made "solid" enough to win endorsement from Congress and Parliament by conjuring up:

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Aluminum artillery tubes misdiagnosed as nuclear related;
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Forgeries alleging Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa;
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Tall tales from a drunken defector about mobile biological weapons laboratories;
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Bogus warnings that Iraqi forces could fire WMD-tipped missiles within 45 minutes of an order to do so;
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Dodgy dossiers fabricated in London; and
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A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate thrown in for good measure.

All this, as Dearlove notes dryly, despite the fact that "there was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." Another nugget from Dearlove's briefing is his bloodless comment that one of the U.S. military options under discussion involved "a continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli"—the clear implication being that planners of the air campaign would also see to it that an appropriate casus belli was orchestrated.

come up again?