UK ordered to make Iraq WMD docs public.

According to View London, the British Foreign Office “has been ordered to publish an early draft of the controversial dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction”:

The final document, which was issued by then prime minister Tony Blair in September 2002, was at the centre of a government scandal after accusations that the dossier had been ’sexed up’ in order to encourage support for an invasion of Iraq.

The document reportedly said that “Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had the ability to launch WMDs within 45 minutes.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/uk-ordered-to-make-iraq-wmd-docs-public/

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/news/iraq-dossier-must-be-published-18439051.html

(snip)

Weapons expert Dr David Kelly was also found dead shortly after he was named as a media source for a documentary into the composition and collection of the information contained in the papers.

On February 9th 2005, a request was made under the Freedom of Information Act by Christopher Ames, a researcher, to view the draft.

But the Foreign Office had previously refused to allow the document to be viewed and may yet appeal to the High Court in order to avoid having to relinquish its confidentiality.

Critics of the process used to put together the dossier point to allegations, originally made by the BBC, that government spin doctors added in a claim that then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had the ability to launch WMDs within 45 minutes.

(end snip)

Hey, if Smirky lied 250 times, I'll just betcha the poodle lied too.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,2245572,00.html

A Whitehall spin doctor may have played a greater role in the drafting of the famous dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction than the government admitted at the time, the Information Tribunal said today.

In a ruling on a freedom of information request relating to what is alleged to be the first draft of the dossier published in 2002, the tribunal said that the public should be allowed to read the document.

The tribunal made its ruling following a three-year campaign by a researcher who believes that the dossier will undermine the government's claims that the document was entirely drawn up by John Scarlett, the then-head of the joint intelligence committee, and not government spin doctors.

The dossier, which claimed Iraq could launch weapons on of mass destruction within 45 minutes, became the subject of huge controversy when the BBC reported that it had been "sexed up" by Downing Street.