Iraqgate 2003 - Lies as a pretext for war

'Fight Smart' Special Report - October 2003

Don't Take the Bait - Fight Smart
ANIMATED 911 SUMMARY - CLICK HERE
Who is the enemy?

David Kelly and Scott Ritter
The Weapons Inspectors Whose Talk Threatened
'Operation Rockingham' and 'The Office of Special Plans'

"How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print."
Karl Kraus (1874 - 1936)

"Charles Duelfer, another former inspector, had been a State Department functionary for years before joining the UNSCOM inspection team. At the U.N. Security Council, critics of U.S. policy viewed him with suspicion as a Trojan horse. Once his U.N. tour of duty was over, he became a 'resident scholar' at the conservative Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, appearing on TV news shows as an impartial authority. He answered technical questions on subjects like liquid bulk anthrax and aerial satellite photos, offering his considered judgment that Iraq unquestionably was hiding a huge arsenal. But off-camera, Duelfer admitted he was a committed proponent of regime change whether Saddam was harboring illegal weapons or not (Endgame, Scott Ritter): 'I think it would be a mistake to focus on the issue of weapons of mass destruction. To do so ignores the larger issue of whether or not we want this dictator to have control over a nation capable of producing 6 billion barrels of oil per day.... If you focus on the weapons issue, the first thing you know, Iraq will be given a clean bill of health.'"
The Great WMD Hunt
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, July/August 2003

"American and British politicians have used the covert nature of intelligence gathering as cover to pass all kinds of arguments to the public. There's a limit to that. Patience runs out. People demand accountability."
French Intelligence Official
Uranium, Not Mine: Time, 28 July 2003

"England is a tiny, little island in the world, but it's like a thorn in the family of nations. Destructive, bloody England ... creating chaos everywhere. And that is called diplomacy. So much of unrest is prevailing in the world due to the British diplomacy."
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Global Country of World Peace, Press Conference, 13 August 2003

"David Kelly, the British government scientist who was skeptical about evidence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, committed suicide after being mysteriously outed as a BBC source and later maligned by government officials. The Bush administration's alleged assault on Wilson's wife smacks in the same way of government retribution. If true, White House officials may have thought they were getting back at Wilson [for exposing one of its false claims about Iraq], but the thing they will have damaged most in the long run is their own credibility".
CIA Outing Snaps Back
Los Angeles Times, 30 September

"In addition the Times reports on a memo dated 9 July from the head of the Security Policy Division (whose name is blanked out) to John Scarlett, head of the Joint Intelligence Committee. It refers to Andrew Gilligan's source at the centre of the BBC's row with the government. The memo says 'The source appears to be an expert on current and recent past Iraq weapons capability, sufficiently well informed to give a statistical figure on that capability.' It would seem therefore that, even before his identity was known, there was not much doubt within the intelligence services about the expertise and knowledge credentials of Gilligan's source. Of course no such 'statistical figure' on Iraq's weapons capability featured in either of Blair's public dossiers because it is increasingly apparent now that Dr Kelly was being stonewalled from within the system. Only once Dr Kelly had started talking to journalists after the war did such a statistical figure begin to seep into the public domain, even though few have still to pay sufficient attention to this crucial fact. If the tabloid headlines the day after the publication of the September dossier had been 'Blair says only 30% chance Iraq has WMDs' (which was the opinion of the government's own unrivalled expert, Dr David Kelly) instead of 'Brits 45 mins from doom' (which is what came out of Rupert Murdoch's pro-war Sun newspaper) how likely is it that the House of Commons would have backed Bush's war for oil? Rarely can the use of spin have had such drastic consequences. The key question that remains is - who was responsible for the stonewalling of Dr Kelly?"
Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special Report, October 2003

"But before the whole thing disappears under a morass of further obfuscation it is worth recalling the real nature of four of the key items which the general public and elected representatives of the Anglo-American alliance were presented with in order to make a case for the 'serious and current' threat from Iraq:

* Plagiarised material from a student thesis more than ten years old produced by the British and cited by Colin Powell at the UN as containing 'exquisite detail'
* 'Evidence' of Iraqi ability to deploy WMDs within 45 minutes now said by one intelligence source cited in the British press to have also been taken from ten year old material, which therefore predates years of subsequent UN weapons inspections (this evidence has also been challenged by the now-deceased British government WMD expert Dr David Kelly)
* Forged documents said to be from Niger
* 'Evidence' from an Iraqi defector whose actual complete testimony turned out, only thanks to a leak, to portray a threat scenario opposite to the one the public had been led to believe (what other cited secret intelligence, whose details Britain and America are 'unable' to disclose for reasons of 'national security', is also being misrepresented for public consumption by the highest levels of government?)

The credentials of the 'Axis of Weasel' are clearly second to none. Most of this information, which was highly damaging to the Anglo-American case, was in the public domain before we went to war. Did the media make a serious fuss over this scandalous situation? No. Nor did most of Congress and Parliament. If WMDs are one day found in Iraq it is unlikely to be thanks to any of this so-called 'evidence' that was paraded before the war. It is now apparent, even to dozing journalists, Congressmen and MPs, that the claim that there was reliable evidence of a 'serious and current' threat at the time the case against Iraq was made was blatantly false. In the UK there have been calls from the Conservatives, Liberals, and disgruntled Labour MPs alike for a full judicial inquiry. The Prime Minister has refused."

Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special Report, October 2003

"Weapons expert Dr David Kelly told of 'many dark actors playing games' in an e-mail to a journalist hours before his suicide, it was reported on Saturday. The words appeared to refer to officials at the Ministry of Defence and UK intelligence agencies with whom he had sparred over interpretations of weapons reports, according to the New York Times.".
Kelly warned of 'dark actors'
London Times, 19 July 2003

Dark Actors
"Within the Defence Intelligence Services I liaise with the Rockingham cell..."
Evidence given by Dr David Kelly, in closed session 16 July 2003
To The British Intelligence and Security Committee

"Not only does this confirm the existence of Rockingham, it confirms that Dr Kelly was interacting with it. It also confirms that the information passed to Dr Kelly from this 'cell' may have been selective. Dr Kelly stated that he only got the intelligence that the principal officer at Rockingham 'thinks is of relevance'..... the reference to Rockingham does not elicit any specific reaction from the committee. Nobody asks 'Can you tell us a bit more about Rockingham?'. The chairman simply follows Dr Kelly's comments on his involvement with Rockingham and MI6 with 'Fine, are there any more questions?'..."
Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special Report, October 2003

What Is 'Operation Rockingham'? - Click Here

Exaggerated Threat - The Essence Of The Deception
Dr Kelly's Expert Views Were Not Reflected In The Case Put To The British Public

"Above all he [Dr Kelly] should be asked to say what kind of a threat Iraq was in September 2002 ... If he is able to
answer frankly it should be devastating."
Email from Andrew Gilligan, BBC, to Greg Simpson Liberal Democrat’s deputy head of press suggesting questioning for Dr Kelly at the Foreign Affair Select Committee (before Dr Kelly was disclosed as Gilligan's source)
Hutton Inquiry Evidence, 19 August 2003

"I see the intelligence which is relevant to my expertise which is in the area of chemical and biological weapons..... I have no idea whether there were weapons or not at that time [of the September dossier].... It is possible it was not the case... I have referred to that: the issue of the 30 per cent probability of Iraq possessing chemical weapons. That is the sort of statement that I do make and may well have made to [Andrew Gilligan of the BBC]..."
Dr David Kelly
Evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, 15 July 2003

"I'm a senior adviser to the [Ministry of Defence's] Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat on Iraq itself, on chemical and biological weapons and the United Nations' approach to dealing with the disarmament of Iraq... I see all the intelligence reporting concerned with both Iraq and ***, with regard to chemical and biological weapons, that arrives in the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat and I have full access to that."
Evidence given by Dr David Kelly, in closed session 16 July 2003
To The British Intelligence and Security Committee

“The source appears to be an expert on current and recent past Iraq weapons capability, sufficiently well informed to give a statistical figure on that capability.”
Memo 9 July from the unnamed head of the Security Policy Division to the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, John Scarlett, during the hunt for the source (now known to be Dr Kelly) of the BBC's WMD 'sexing-up' allegations against the government
London Times 30 August 2003

"[the 30% probability] is what I have been saying all the way through.... I said that to many people... it was a statement that I would have probably made for the last six months..."
Evidence given by Dr David Kelly, in closed session 16 July 2003
To The British Intelligence and Security Committee

"Basically it would be very difficult to see how Iraq could deploy in 45 minutes."
Dr David Kelly
Evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, 15 July 2003

"...the current threat presented by Iraq militarily is modest"
[from unpublished article written by Dr David Kelly days before the start of the Iraq war March 2003]
Observer, 31 August 2003

"What I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons.... I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current.... the document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.... The threat posed to international peace and security, when WMD are in the hands of a brutal and aggressive regime like Saddam’s, is real.... We must ensure that he does not get to use the weapons he has...."
Foreword by the Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Tony Blair MP
IRAQ’S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
THE ASSESSMENT OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
September Dossier 2002

"In contradiction to Dr Kelly, the government's leading expert with access to the underlying intelligence, the foreword to the document comprises an unqualified assertion by the Prime Minister that at the time of the production of the September dossier Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. This was stated to be 'beyond doubt' based on 'assessed intelligence'. The Prime Minister was certain, whilst the country's leading expert had 'no idea'. On the basis of this dossier, and the follow-on one in February - itself based in large part on material copied from a ten year old student thesis - Members of Parliament voted for war.... Would MPs have voted for war had they known that the government's leading expert... considered the only current risk to be a 30 per cent chance that Iraq had chemical weapons. And would they have voted for war had they realised that the principal documents submitted to the UN as evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions were exposed as forgeries barely 10 days earlier?....."
Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special Report, October 2003

"I knew from the outset, for example, that Dr Kelly had some distinctive views about whether Saddam Hussein's regime was still manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. He judged there was only a 35 per cent likelihood that was the case. That was a distinctive view that had been recognised by a colleague, which prompted him to come forward in the first place. Yes, I was aware that his views were not entirely consistent with those that, for example, had appeared in the dossier that had been published in September."
Minister of Defence, Geoff Hoon
Evidence to Hutton Inquiry, 22 September 2003

"I mean I reviewed the whole thing [dossier], I was involved with the whole process.... it was very difficult to get comments in because people at the top of the ladder didn't want to hear some of the things."
Dr David Kelly speaking to Susan Watts of the BBC, 30 May 2003
Transcript of audio recording of their conversation, Hutton Inquiry, 13 August 2003

"In David's opinion, Saddam was less of a threat in 2003 than he had been in 1991".
Julie Flint, Middle East expert, who spoke to David Kelly shortly before the start of the Iraq war
Observer, 31 August 2003

"Mr Scarlett [Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee had told Mr Campbell: 'There may well be people down the ranks [of the intelligence services] who are unhappy with this [dossier] but you have to know this is not the view of people at the top.'....."
Campbell defends dossier role [at Hutton Inquiry]
BCC Online, 19 August 2003

"[After the war] The Prime Minister wanted to know what we knew of Kelly's views on weapons of mass destruction... and what he would say if he appeared before the Intelligence and Security Committee or Foreign Affairs Committee."
The Prime Minister's Chief-of-Staff, Jonathan Powell
Hutton Inquiry, 18 August 2003

"If he appeared before a Committee, would he be likely to support or otherwise the Government position? JSc to seek advice from MOD."
John Scarlett, Chairman of Joint Intelligence Committee
Aide memoire, 21 July 2003, as released by Hutton inquiry

"Sir Kevin Tebbit warned Downing Street that Dr Kelly's emergence as the suspected mole was not some 'windfall bonus' in the row because he could have some awkward views"
Campbell 'suggested source leak'
BBC Online, 20 August 2003

"Geoff Hoon was under new pressure yesterday after the Hutton inquiry was told that he had set firm conditions on David Kelly’s appearance before the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee. The Defence Secretary said that Dr Kelly, whose name had been revealed a few days earlier, should be questioned on Andrew Gilligan’s evidence to that committee, and not on the wider issue of weapons of mass destruction and the preparation of the Iraqi dossier."
Hoon sought to control questions asked of Kelly
London Times, 22 August 2003

"As the London Times 20 June put it 'No 10 may have 'cherry-picked' the intelligence — Robin Cook’s colourful phrase — but there had to be cherries for the picking. Who grew them?' ...Indeed, there is little doubt now that somebody within the system 'sexed' things up in making the case against Iraq, albeit often in ways that have not featured strongly in the current debate. If the Prime Minister is really convinced of his own integrity, and by implication the rest of Downing St, then why is he not demanding an investigation of the intelligence services given all that we now know?.....A very close look at the operation of the intelligence services at and around the top of their command and at their interface with the political system is urgently needed."
Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special Report, October 2003

"We will only know the truth of the matter if we have a full independent enquiry into the plot (and my other disclosures). Without that no one can say hand on heart what happened (apart from me. I was briefed on the plot at the time). Anything less sends out the wrong signal to MI6. Anything less suggests that MI6 is above the law or that MI6 can continue to carry out illegal operations without government interference. I need hardly tell you how that begins to eat away at the rule of law and also to undermine our democracy because unelected intelligence officers decide our foreign policy, not our elected representatives... Many MPs including the Intelligence and Security Committee are now looking negligent and foolhardy for not pursuing my disclosures more vigorously. They shouldn't be caught out a second time or the people will begin to think that parliament and the opposition in general has no credibility whatsoever".
Statement from David Shayler, former MI5 officer, on earlier illegal activities of MI6
15 February 2000

"That second time may now have arrived. And it is probably the most serious issue which lies at the heart of 'Iraqgate 2003'. In effect Shayler was spelling out the implications of such unaccountable subterfuge for the future of civil society in Britain at the beginning of the 21st century. A report in the Guardian 8 September throws some light on the role played by the Head of MI6 in the making of the case for the invasion of Iraq. .... A senior minister told the Guardian that Dearlove 'was a strong supporter of pre-emptive action, anxious that the intelligence MI6 supplied produced results'. So at the highest levels has real intelligence been driving policy (which is what should happen), or has policy been driving 'intelligence' that is suspect? And if the latter then what policy, and emanating from whom?"
Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special Report, October 2003

David Shayler on the illegal activities of Britain's intelligence services - click here

"What has already emerged - but been largely ignored - from the Hutton inquiry is the existence of a dark, almost Jacobean, cabal at the core of the Blair administration. It is a group of powerful, unelected people few would have heard of were it not for the evidence given to Hutton: Sir David Manning, the prime minister's foreign policy adviser; Sir David Omand, his security coordinator; and John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee. Until he resigned, the group also included Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications director. Indeed, he was a prime mover in establishing this inner circle."
There is a dark cabal around Blair
Independent, 11 September 2003

"There may be something even more frightening here. What if Blair believes this stuff - if you have a leader who can be led around by the nose by a few bureaucrats with a right-wing agenda? That's what scares me... I've got all these inside documents, showing what's really going on behind the closed doors of these huge empires of finance. But instead, we get pictures of green-haired kids throwing chairs through the windows of McDonald's. That is what the press considers a discussion of globalisation".
Interview with BBC Newsnight award winning investigative reporter, American Greg Palast
Metro, 18 June 2003

"Since the end of the Cold War the work of the British intelligence services has been increasingly focused on the national economic interest. Said to be closely involved with the major City institutions, particularly banking, the Economic Sub-Committee of the Joint Intelligence Committee also includes representatives of both the Treasury and the Bank of England."
Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special Report, October 2003

"A retired MI6 officer has been appointed to a top post at BP-Amoco, the British-based oil company..... John Gerson was director of security and public affairs at the agency and was embroiled in attempts to suppress disclosures by the former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson. Mr Gerson took early retirement from what was effectively the post of deputy head of MI6 at the end of last year. Last month he became one of BP's vice-presidents for government and public affairs. His appointment was approved by the cabinet secretary, Sir Richard Wilson. MI6 has close links with oil companies, the 'revolving door' syndrome, in the same way as armed forces officers have close links with defence companies. Rolls-Royce has employed former MI6 officers to help win contracts in the Middle East, and merchant banks have taken some on. During the first reading of the intelligence services bill, Lord Mackay, the conservative lord chancellor, told peers in 1994 that MI6 protected the 'economic wellbeing' of the country by keeping 'a particular eye on Britain's access to key commodities, like oil...'"
Former MI6 officer gets top post at BP
Guardian, 8 May 2000

"The woman seen as Prime Minister Tony Blair's closest and most trusted aide is to leave the government for a job at oil giant BP.... [Anji Hunter] has been a permanent fixture at the prime minister's side since he first became Labour leader in 1994 ...[and] is widely seen as the prime minister's door keeper..."
Blair's closest aide resigns
BBC Online, 8 November 2001

"Hunter, along with Alastair Campbell and Sir David Manning, had accompanied Blair on his trips to set up the coalition for the invasion of Afghanistan after 911. The Foreign Secretary was left at home. The links between oil, Downing St, the intelligence services, and war could hardly be more intimate."
Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special Report, October 2003

"Following the war in Afghanistan BP are now opening up the Caspian Sea region (which will also feed the post 911 trans-Afghan pipeline to the east) from the western side. This involves the construction of a new pipeline to the Mediterranean via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. It follows the build-up of US troops in most of the Asian Islamic 'Stan' countries and Georgia for such purposes following 911. Needless to say Islamic militants are unlikely to be too pleased about this. When the Prime Minister says al Qaeda attacks on the UK are now inevitable, this is a key reason why. It is now well documented that the US led attack on Afghanistan was planned well before 911 as a result of the collapse of US negotiations with the Taliban to build a new gas pipeline through the country. This was part of a broader White House strategy to open up the Caspian Sea region with western oil companies, including BP and Enron (it was Enron who paid a 'modest' $300,000 towards the inauguration ceremony of President Bush at the beginning of 2001)."
What Is Happening To Britain And America?
'Fight Smart', 9 Feb 2003

"There is a saying that for evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to stay silent. In one of London's most prestigious dining rooms on November 13 2002 I listened, along with some 200 of the 'great and the good', to a very senior American politician close to the Bush administration tell us that it did not matter what happened in the UN or what the weapons inspectors said. The decision to invade had already been taken. I was appalled... Let us be clear as to why our troops are in Iraq. Do not for a moment be fooled about the case for regime change. The west has long since learned to live and work with regimes that would be difficult to square with a moral foreign policy.... In the absence of the evidence that could give credibility to our actions this government can restore trust only by opening the record for the public scrutiny of a judicial inquiry."
Lord Heseltine, British Deputy prime minister, 1995-97, and defence minister, 1983-86
Guardian, 1 September 2003

"The 20th September draft still includes a number of statements which are not supported by the evidence available to me. I acknowledge that in this statement the Prime Minister [in the dossier] will be expressing his own ‘belief’ about what the assessed intelligence has established. What I wish to record is that based on the intelligence available to me it has NOT established beyond doubt that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and bioligical weapons. ... [Also the 45 minute claim] is based on a single source. The judgment is too strong considering the intelligence on which it was based.'”
Memo from an intelligence analyst working for the Defence Intelligence Staff to Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, September 2002
Hutton Inquiry/London Times, 16 September 2003

"A crucial claim in the British Government's case for the Iraq war - that Saddam Hussein could threaten the West within 45 minutes with chemical and biological weapons - was seriously undermined at the Hutton inquiry yesterday. John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which was in charge of compiling the Iraq weapons dossier, revealed that the alleged threat related not to long-range missiles but 'battlefield mortar shells or small-calibre weaponry' that did not threaten Britain or even Iraq's neighbours. In last September's dossier, the 45-minute claim was made alongside details of Iraq's alleged possession of al-Hussain missiles that could strike British bases in Cyprus. .... The disclosure by Prime Minister Tony Blair's most senior intelligence adviser is the first official statement on the exact nature of the threat. Weapons experts said yesterday that the normal definition of an international weapons of mass destruction threat would exclude battlefield mortar shells, even if they had chemical or biological stocks attached. Such arms represented no threat to Britain, they said."
Spy chief weakens Blair's case
New Zealand Herald, 28 August 2003

"The Ministry of Defence wanted to stop two senior members of its intelligence staff who had expressed concerns about the government dossier on Iraq from appearing as witnesses before a parliamentary committee, according to written evidence at the Hutton inquiry. An internal MoD memo, written by Martin Howard, deputy chief of Defence Intelligence, recommended that 'we should resist any calls from the ISC (Intelligence and Security Committee) to disclose the identities of the individuals concerned, call them as witnesses or have access to their written comments to line management'..."
MoD moved to stop witness call on staff
London Times, 15 August 2003

"An explosive letter, revealed in full as Downing Street officials prepare to give evidence to Lord Hutton's inquiry this week, makes it clear that the officer, whose name has not been revealed, felt 'very uneasy' about claims made to MPs by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary. Mr Straw said that the intelligence community had no complaints about the dossier but the intelligence officer had formally registered his concerns last September. The officer, who described himself as 'the most senior and experienced intelligence community official working on WMD', said on 8 July he feared that he 'might be judged culpable' if he didn't come forward to correct Mr Straw's remarks to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and asked for advice on whether to do so. However, after David Kelly was found dead, Martin Howard, deputy chief of Defence Intelligence, wrote to the official to suggest that he should not take the matter any further....The officer had formally complained on 19 September that he was unhappy with its use of intelligence. He wrote to the Defence Intelligence Staff technical department and Tony Cragg, the then deputy chief of Defence Intelligence. However, what was not revealed during the hearing was that the officer's letter had referred explicitly to Mr Straw's failure to tell MPs the full truth of such concerns."
Intelligence officer's 'unease' at Straw's Iraq claims
Independent 18 August 2003

"We conclude that it is very odd indeed that the Government asserts that it was not relying on the evidence which has since been shown to have been forged, but that eight months later it is still reviewing the other evidence.....We recommend that the Government explain on what evidence it relied for its judgment in September 2002 that Iraq had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. We further recommend that in its response to this Report the Government set out whether it still considers the September dossier to be accurate in what it states about Iraq’s attempts to procure uranium from Africa, in the light of subsequent events."
House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee
The Decision to go to War in Iraq
Ninth Report of Session 2002 –03, Volume I, 3 July 2003

"Mr Straw not only denied that the forged documents came from British sources, but said Britain's allegations about Iraq's quest for uranium in Africa came from 'quite separate sources'. He said he would give further details of these sources for the uranium allegation in a closed session on Friday, during which he was fiercely cross-questioned by Sir John Stanley, the committee's chief sceptic. After hearing what the Foreign Secretary had to say, the Tory MP is reported to have told Mr Straw he did not believe him...."
Ministers knew war papers were forged, says diplomat
Independent, 29 June 2003

"The [Italian] newspaper quotes a source from Sismi, the Italian military intelligence agency, as saying that the documents were passed to MI6 in 2002. Six documents referring to Niger, possibly the same as those given to the Italians, were also passed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by Washington. Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, told the UN Security Council in March that they were crude forgeries."
MI6 was 'duped by forgeries'
London Times, 17 July 2003

"Italy may have passed on to the United States and Britain disputed claims that Saddam Hussein had been seeking uranium in Africa to make nuclear weapons, the head of a parliamentary intelligence committee said Wednesday. Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government has denied that Italy's intelligence services passed on 'documents' about the matter. But committee chief Enzo Bianco speaking after a top government official addressed the commission in secret, did not deny that the information may have been passed on informally. 'This is possible,' he said. 'I don't rule it out.' Cabinet undersecretary and top Berlusconi aide Gianni Letta, who briefed the intelligence commission Wednesday afternoon, refused to comment on the hearing.... Critics have been pressuring U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair over the disputed uranium intelligence. U.S. intelligence agencies had raised questions previously about assertions of the claimed activity by the Iraqi president. Underlying documents to support the contention proved to have been forged....The report in Rome's La Repubblica quoted a source from Sismi, the Italian military intelligence service, as saying in late 2001 or early 2002, the MI6 British intelligence unit obtained the documents. The source implied that Italian colleagues provided the information to the British intelligence officials. 'There were several meetings, at a higher level, almost always in London,' the source was quoted as saying. 'Despite this positive climate, we don't know if it were the English who passed on that stuff to the CIA. It's rather probable.'"
Italy May Be Source on Uranium Story
Fox News, 16 July 2003

"The three agencies [CIA, National Security Council and State Department] were also kept in the dark about a mission undertaken immediately afterward by former CIA director and DPB [Defense Policy Board] member James Woolsey to London to gather intelligence about possible links between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, as if the CIA or the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) could not be trusted."
Iran-Contra, Amplified
Inter Press Service News Agency 9 August

"And did this report of a trip to London by Woolsey represent a brief public surfacing of a transatlantic link between Operation Rockingham (the subversive British intelligence massaging exercise alleged by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter) and the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon, a new US bureaucracy established by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to fulfil a similar purpose?... it would be interesting to learn whether or not Woolsey had a hand in the promotion of the Niger uranium forgeries. This is particularly so taking into account the length of the overseas errand Woolsey was sent on post-911, not long after which the Niger forgeries first emerged. Did Woolsey make any visits, for example, to Italy in addition to London and Prague?"
Iraqgate 2003
'Fight Smart', Special Report, October 2003

"Forged documents and false accusations have been an element in U.S. and British policy toward Iraq at least since the fall of 1997, after an impasse over U.N. inspections....A former Clinton Administration official told me that London had resorted to, among other things, spreading false information about Iraq. The British propaganda program—part of its Information Operations, or I/Ops—was known to a few senior officials in Washington.... dozens of unverified and unverifiable intelligence reports and tips—data known as inactionable intelligence—[were] to be funnelled to MI6 operatives and quietly passed along to newspapers in London and elsewhere. 'It was intelligence that was crap, and that we couldn’t move on, but the Brits wanted to plant stories in England and around the world,' the former officer said. There was a series of clandestine meetings with MI6, at which documents were provided, as well as quiet meetings, usually at safe houses in the Washington area..... None of the past and present officials I spoke with were able to categorically state that the fake Niger documents were created or instigated by the same propaganda office in MI6 that had been part of the anti-Iraq propaganda wars in the late nineteen-nineties (An MI6 intelligence source declined to comment.)....[However] What is generally agreed upon, a congressional intelligence-committee staff member told me, is that the Niger documents were initially circulated by the British—President Bush said as much in his State of the Union speech—and that 'the Brits placed more stock in them than we did.' It is also clear, as the former high-level intelligence official told me, that 'something as bizarre as Niger raises suspicions everywhere.'... "
WHO LIED TO WHOM?
New Yorker, 24 March 2003

"Britain ran a covert 'dirty tricks' operation designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq. Operation Rockingham, established by the Defence Intelligence Staff within the Ministry of Defence in 1991, was set up to 'cherry-pick' intelligence proving an active Iraqi WMD programme and to ignore and quash intelligence which indicated that Saddam's stockpiles had been destroyed or wound down. The existence of Operation Rockingham has been confirmed by Scott Ritter, the former UN chief weapons inspector, and a US military intelligence officer. He knew members of the Operation Rockingham team and described the unit as 'dangerous', but insisted they were not 'rogue agents' acting without government backing. 'This policy was coming from the very highest levels,' he added.... Ritter and other intelligence sources say Operation Rockingham and MI6 were supplying skewed information to the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) which, Tony Blair has told the Commons, was behind the intelligence dossiers that the government published to convince the parliament and the people of the necessity of war against Iraq. Sources in both the British and US intelligence community are now equating the JIC with the Office of Special Plans (OSP) in the US Pentagon. The OSP was set up by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to gather intelligence which would prove the case for war..... Ritter has also offered to give evidence to [the British] parliament."
Revealed: the secret cabal which spun for Blair
Sunday Herald, 8 June 2003

"According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency. The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney. The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight....In the days after September 11, Mr Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, mounted an attempt to include Iraq in the war against terror. When the established agencies came up with nothing concrete to link Iraq and al-Qaida, the OSP was given the task of looking more carefully....The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House.... The OSP absorbed this heady brew of raw intelligence, rumour and plain disinformation and made it a 'product', a prodigious stream of reports with a guaranteed readership in the White House. The primary customers were Mr Cheney, Mr Libby and their closest ideological ally on the national security council, Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice's deputy."
The spies who pushed for war
Guardian 17 July 2003

"Tenet and Cheney's office said the vice president was never briefed on the results of Wilson's trip, or even of the CIA's doubts about the [Niger-Iraq uranium] claim.... Some outside the administration find it hard to believe Cheney could be so deeply enmeshed in intelligence issues but be left out of the loop regarding the uranium claim, especially because it was a subject in which Cheney took interest."
Prewar statements by Cheney under scrutiny
Chicago Tribune, 2 August 2003

"They may have finally found the smoking gun that nails the culprit responsible for the Iraq war. Unfortunately, the incriminating evidence wasn't left in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces but rather in Vice President Dick Cheney's office.... Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson publicly revealed over the weekend that he was the mysterious envoy whom the CIA, under pressure from Cheney, sent to Niger to investigate a document - now known to be a crude forgery - that allegedly showed Iraq was trying to acquire enriched uranium that might be used to build a nuclear bomb. Wilson found no basis for the story, and nobody else has either... In order to believe that our president was not lying to us, we must believe that this information did not find its way through Cheney's office to the Oval Office."
A Diplomat's Undiplomatic Truth: They Lied
The Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2003

"...what Hutton has exposed is that neither the dossier nor the intelligence assessment was designed to inform government decisions on Iraq. The real assessment had already been made by the government, and the intelligence community was asked to provide evidence to support it... Instead of setting out the real reasons for these decisions, the government wanted us to believe it all stemmed from the intelligence assessment. Of course it didn't..."
John Denham, Home Office Minister until he resigned in March over the Iraq war
Guardian, 28 August 2003

"[Blair] has dropped more bombs on civilians than any British ruler since the Second World War."
The untimely death of a liberal generation
London Times, 24 September 2003

"The world's oil reserves are up to 80 percent less than predicted, a team from Sweden's University of Uppsala says. Production levels will peak in about 10 years' time, they say.... Oil production levels will hit their maximum soon after 2010 with gas supplies peaking not long afterwards, the Swedish geologists say.....Alekett said that his team had examined data on oil and gas reserves from all over the world and we were 'facing a very critical situation globally.' The conclusions of the Uppsala team were revealed in the magazine New Scientist Thursday".
World oil and gas 'running out'
CNN, 2 October 2003

"The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, yesterday pinpointed for the first time security of energy sources as a key priority of British foreign policy. Mr Straw listed energy as one of seven foreign policy priorities when he addressed a meeting of 150 British ambassadors in London. The US and British governments officially deny that oil is a factor in the looming war with Iraq, but some ministers and officials in Whitehall say privately that oil is more important in the calculation than weapons of mass destruction.... Mr Straw told ambassadors that, following a review he ordered last year, the Foreign Office drew up a list of seven medium to long-term strategic priorities, including 'to bolster the security of British and global energy supplies'".
Straw admits oil is key priority
Guardian 7 January 2003

"Fuel is our economic lifeblood. The price of oil can be the difference between recession and recovery. The western world is import dependent. ....So: who develops oil and gas, what the new potential sources of supply are, is a vital strategic question...The Middle East, we focus on naturally."
Prime Minister's speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential Library
10 Downing St, Press Release, 7 April 2002

"At a NATO conference in Prague last November, [former CIA Director James] Woolsey declared 'Iraq can be seen as the first battle of the fourth world war,' in rhetoric that he has practiced and honed virtually since the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. 'After two hot world wars and one cold one that all began and were centered in Europe,' he said, 'the fourth world war is going to be for the Middle East.' ....."
Woolsey's Role Crucial to Impact of Occupation
'Foreign Policy in Focus', 8 April 2003

"By 2020, the country could be dependent on imported energy for 80 per cent of its needs"
Blowin' in the wind: the answer to Britain's looming energy crisis
Independent, 15 July 2003

"The offshore wind farms announced today will provide [a mere] 5 per cent of total UK electricity supply... The Government has not yet given a firm commitment to a renewables market after 2010."
London Times, 15 July 2003

"[Getting rid of a murderous regime in Iraq] was not the reason why we went to war. My view is that we went to war because America wanted to establish a political and military platform in the Middle East, it saw a need for oil and of course it wished to support Israel. Weapons of mass destruction, if they existed, even on the most threatening predictions, were certainly not going to put Europe or the US at risk.”
Michael Meacher, UK Government Environment Minister sacked by Tony Blair June 2003
London Times, 20 June 2003

"Was this invasion because of weapons of mass destruction, as we so often have heard? If so, where are they? Did we invade to dispose of a leader and his regime because they were closely associated with Osama bin Laden? If so, where is the proof? Or is it that our incursion is a result of our own economic advantage? Iraq's oil can be refined at the lowest cost of any in the world. Coincidence? This looks like a modern-day crusade not to free an oppressed people or to rid the world of a demonic dictator relentless in his pursuit of conquest and domination but a crusade to control another nation's natural resource. At least to me, oil seems to be the reason for our presence."
(US soldier serving in Iraq)
Los Angeles Times, 17 September 2003

1998 - THE YEAR THAT UN WEAPON'S INSPECTORS WERE FORCED OUT OF IRAQ BY LONDON AND WASHINGTON'S 'OPERATION DESERT FOX'

"... let's remember Saddam Hussein didn't kick the inspectors out [in 1998]. The U.S. ordered the inspectors out 48 hours before they initiated Operation Desert Fox -- military action that didn't have the support of the U.N. Security Council and which used information gathered by the inspectors, to target Iraq... As of December 1998 we had accounted for 90 to 95 percent of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability -'we' being the weapons inspectors. We destroyed all the factories, all of the means of production and we couldn't account for some of the weaponry, but chemical weapons have a shelf-life of five years. Biological weapons have a shelf-life of three years. To have weapons today, they would have had to rebuild the factories and start the process of producing these weapons since December 1998."
Scott Ritter [former UN weapons inspector]: Facts needed before Iraq attack
CNN, 17 June 2002

"Industrialized world and US [will] become steadily more dependent on imports... Asia will become the dominant consuming region by 2010...The growing domestic demand for oil in other developing regions will become a major factor and will steadily limit the export capabilities of the Middle East, Africa, and FSU.... Pipeline, port, and tanker geopolitics will change fundamentally during 1998-2020... Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Russia represent 'high risk' oil suppliers with major potential geopolitical impacts."
The Changing Geopolitics of Energy – Part I
Key Global Trends in Supply and Demand: 1990-2020
Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, 12 August 1998

"My forecast is that between 2000 and 2005 the world will be reaching peak production from our known fields."
Franco Bernabe, chief executive of the [30% government owned] Italian oil company Eni SpA
Energy apocalypse looms as the world runs out of oil
Observer, 26 July 1998

A British television report 22 September by award winning investigative journalist John Pilger revealed that US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat. Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 where he stated "He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

Powell's remarks were posted on the US State Department's web site at the time. Two months later Rice reportedly said "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

Writing in the Daily Mirror Pilger himself states "An investigation of files and archive film for my TV documentary Breaking The Silence, together with interviews with former intelligence officers and senior Bush officials have revealed that Bush and Blair knew all along that Saddam Hussein was effectively disarmed." His article is entitled "The Big Lie".

Pilger adds "Contrary to Blair's denials at the time, the decision to attack Iraq was set in motion on September 17 2001, just six days after the attacks on New York and Washington. On that day, Bush signed a top-secret directive, ordering the Pentagon to begin planning 'military options' for an invasion of Iraq. In July 2002, Condoleezza Rice told another Bush official who had voiced doubts about invading Iraq: 'A decision has been made. Don't waste your breath.'..... By setting up an inquiry solely into the death of the weapons expert David Kelly, Blair has ensured there will be no official public investigation into the real reasons he and Bush attacked Iraq. The sheer scale of this cover-up makes almost laughable the forensic cross-examination of the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan about 'anomalies' in the notes of his interview with David Kelly - when the story Gilligan told of government hypocrisy and deception was basically true."

It now transpires that three out of five people believe that Tony Blair lied over the threat posed by Iraqi weapons in the run-up to war according to an NOP poll for The Independent published 30 September. Meanwhile John Reid, the Secretary of State for Health, felt it necessary to tell Labour Party conference delegates at the end of September that "Our Prime Minister is not a liar".

Across the Atlantic USA Today ran an article 15 September which reported that "CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN 'was intimidated' by the Bush administration and Fox News, which 'put a climate of fear and self-censorship'. As criticism of the war and its aftermath intensifies, Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and pundits who charge that the media largely toed the Bush administration line in covering the war and, by doing so, failed to aggressively question the motives behind the invasion".

The role of networks like Fox News (owned by Rupert Murdoch) in pumping propaganda should not be underestimated. On 2 October the Washington based Program on International Policy Attitudes produced a commentary on this situation. It advised that "A new study based on a series of seven nationwide polls conducted from January through September of this year reveals that before and after the Iraq war, a majority of Americans have had significant misperceptions and these are highly related to support for the war with Iraq. The polling, conducted by the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks, also reveals that the frequency of these misperceptions varies significantly according to individuals' primary source of news. Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely".

In the study 80% of Fox viewers held one or more basic misconceptions about the war (for example related to claims that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda have been found), whilst in the case of PBS only 23% did. The commentary adds that "Such misperceptions are highly related to support for the war.... Variations in misperceptions according to news source cannot simply be explained as a result of differences in the demographics of each audience, because these variations can also be found when comparing the rate of misperceptions within demographic subgroups of each audience... While it would seem that misperceptions are derived from a failure to pay attention to the news, in fact, overall, those who pay greater attention to the news are no less likely to have misperceptions. Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. Only those who mostly get their news from print media have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention".

Brain washing by TV in other words. With impact like this it is little wonder that Rupert Murdoch has been urging the British government to restrict the reach of the BBC, and to a relax commercial media ownership rules in the UK (this the government has promoted through its Communications Act which received Royal Assent in July despite a failed rear-guard effort in the House of Lords to stop media magnates being able to buy broadcasters such as Five, formerly Channel 5, which Murdoch is said to be interested in acquiring).

Even Ted Turner, founder of CNN has accused Murdoch of helping to start the American-led war by using his News Corporation media outlets to advocate an invasion. News Corporation has described itself as "the only vertically integrated media company on a global scale". It includes Fox TV in the US and the Sun newspaper in the UK.

In a speech in San Francisco in April Turner stated "I call it Murdoch's War" and complained that the biggest media companies "don't have the public's interest at heart".

The incestuous relationships now prevalent at the political-media-commerce interface is truly alarming, particularly in the US. According to a report in the Guardian 7 April "Political donations by US television and radio stations have almost doubled in the last year, research has shown. And the Bush family's association with many media organisations runs deep and is reflected by the hefty handouts from the likes of NBC network owner General Electric and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, both trenchant supporters of the war. The amount of money ploughed into party coffers by Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV, NBC and radio giant Clear Channel among others has gone up to £7.56m in 2001/2002, compared with just £4.6m in 2000, the latest figures reveal. Media companies have shown that they have deep pockets when it comes to politics, with the level of contributions made over the last decade growing ninefold, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics, a US research group that tracks money and politics. The support President Bush has received from the corporate sector is evidenced by the unprecedented $100m he raised when he decided to run for president... Figures show that NBC network owner General Electric and News Corporation, owner of the Fox and Sky television networks and the New York Post, tipped the bulk of their soft money funds into Republican coffers in 2001-02. The two media giants are among the most prolific donors, according the data reported to the US federal electoral commission... Murdoch's media empire still has close ties with the Bush family. The relationship was recently put under the spotlight when it was revealed that Fox News Channel chairman Roger Ailes, a former Republican party strategist, secretly acted as an advisor to the president in the days after the September 11 terrorist strikes.".

However, even in the US there are still limits to how far public opinion can be manipulated by commercial TV networks. Now that it is becoming unavoidably clear the degree to which the public were deceived over Iraq, open discussion about the motives for the war is becoming increasingly frank. Amanpour is quoted by USA Today as saying "it looks like this was disinformation at the highest levels."

A week or so earlier, on 6 September, the British newspaper the Guardian had published an article by Michael Meacher. Meacher had been Environment Minister in Tony Blair's Labour government up until only three months before. His article was entitled "This war on terrorism is bogus - The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination".

Meacher's argument was that the actions of the Bush administration prior-to and following the attacks on America on 11 September 2001 are better explained by pre-existing US plans to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, than they are by claims that they were part of a 'war against terrorism'. His long article was heavily referenced to media reports and other publicly available sources. It claimed that 911 had been used a convenient pretext to implement those plans. The real focus of the Bush administration was offence not defence.

The strategy is a blueprint for US military expansionism and global geo-political domination. Amongst many other objectives the document targets US control of the Persian Gulf as a key task for which "the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification". It states that "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." In other words control of the oil rich Gulf, not regime change in Iraq, is the real goal - even though it is Saddam's rogue status which is able to provide the initial excuse for intervention.

After setting out his extensive and detailed case Meacher concludes that "None of this assembled evidence, all of which comes from sources already in the public domain, is compatible with the idea of a real, determined war on terrorism.... The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies. By 2010 the Muslim world will control as much as 60% of the world's oil production and, even more importantly, 95% of remaining global oil export capacity. As demand is increasing, so supply is decreasing, continually since the 1960s.... The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the 'global war on terrorism' has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project".

If Meacher's political pedigree has its roots in the left the same cannot be said of Sachs.

Sachs opens his article bluntly stating "The crucial question regarding Iraq is not whether the motives for war were disguised, but why. The argument that Iraq posed a grave and imminent threat was absurd to anybody not under the spell of round-the-clock White House and 10 Downing Street spin." These are troubling words coming as they do from a someone of Sachs' standing.

Sachs' FT article was entitled "Saudi Arabia Was Real Target in Iraq War". The article identifies Iraq as a target of US foreign policy because of concerns over US dependency on oil from Saudi Arabia. It continues with "Two truths have long governed US energy security. The first is that Saudi Arabia is the key to world oil stability, the accommodating supplier when markets get too tight. It would be a potential threat to the world economy if Saudi oil flows were disrupted. In 1973-74, with the Arab oil embargo, the Ford presidency was brought down by the disruption of the US economy, a point not lost on two young senior officials at the time, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney, respectively Gerald Ford's defence secretary and White House chief of staff. Pentagon and academic planners began making contingency plans for the military seizure of the Middle East oilfields.... 15 out of the 19 [911] terrorists were from Saudi Arabia..... A new book by former CIA agent Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil, details how the US government had systematically turned away from the growing evidence of Saudi complicity in fundamentalist terrorism, thereby frustrating the kind of investigations that might have headed off September 11.... September 11 was a dramatic confirmation that the stability of Saudi oil was in jeopardy. The regime was unstable and perhaps even a lethal threat to the US. The only quantitatively significant alternative to Saudi oil was Iraqi oil, but that option was barred as long as Saddam Hussein remained in power. The long-standing contingency plans to seize Middle Eastern oil were probably rolled out within days of September 11..... But if the Iraq war was an opportunistic response to September 11, it is crucially important that we know it. Thousands of lives and perhaps $100bn have gone into this war, with little to show for it except an enraged Iraqi public and enormous costs of occupation extending into the future. The US media have so far shown little interest in connecting the dots".

It is not easy to dismiss such remarks when they come from someone of Sachs' background and when they are published in a paper like the Financial Times.

Meacher's article followed within a month, although almost immediately following his dismissal by Prime Minister Blair in June Meacher had publicly identified the oil motive lying behind the invasion of Iraq. This he expressed in an interview published by the London Times 20 June, whose report stated "World peace and the future of the planet are threatened by the overwhelming power of an 'aggressive and unilateralist America' run by a right-wing President with close connections to the oil industry. Such is the view of Michael Meacher, who until being sacked, or 'liberated' as he put it, in last week’s reshuffle had spent six years as Environment Minister."

However, Meacher's September article in the Guardian was much more explicit and widely referenced than his original salvo in the Times. As it happens his Guardian article had been preceded earlier that same week by another in the same paper from former British deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine.

Lord Heseltine, a Conservative, stated "There is a saying that for evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to stay silent.... In one of London's most prestigious dining rooms on November 13 2002 I listened, along with some 200 of the 'great and the good', to a very senior American politician close to the Bush administration tell us that it did not matter what happened in the UN or what the weapons inspectors said. The decision to invade had already been taken. I was appalled. But I was appalled by the idea without being convinced that what we had just been told was true..... Let us be clear as to why our troops are in Iraq. Do not for a moment be fooled about the case for regime change. The west has long since learned to live and work with regimes that would be difficult to square with a moral foreign policy. If Saddam were ever brought to trial his lawyers would have some uncomfortable fun with our relationship with him in the early 1980s, when he was all that stood between western interests and Iran.... British troops are dying. Their professionalism and their bravery must make strong men humble. They act in our name. That puts upon our shoulders the responsibility to ask this of them only if the case is proven. Until now I have stayed silent. I will be the first to salute the courage of the prime minister and President Bush if they are proved right, but that needs more than rhetoric and it certainly does not permit a change in the original case from WMD to regime change. But suppose they are not."

Heseltine called for a full judicial inquiry into why Britain had gone to war with Iraq.

A few days later many other media outlets across the globe, although noticeably not in the US, found themselves running coverage on Meacher's subsequent analysis in the Guardian which in effect put Heseltine's telling comments into a broader context. In the UK the tone of the coverage varied from "Outrage at Meacher's 9/11 claim" (Sunday People, 6 September) to "Serious questions on Sep 11" (ITV News, 6 September). The Daily Mail group (via Northcliffe Electronic Publishing) ran the story widely across its local media internet sites under the headline "Terror used as smokescreen: Meacher".

Not surprisingly Meacher's article received a frosty reception from the British Government. Quoting a spokesman for 10 Downing St the BBC reported 6 September "He is obviously no longer a member of the government. His views are obviously not ones that the prime minister would share.... Earlier, another spokesman for Tony Blair pointed out that profits from Iraqi oil were being put in a trust fund for the country's reconstruction".

Sir Arthur Balfour was British Foreign secretary 1916-1919. In a piece in the New York Times 6 April he is quoted in a way which exposes the lie behind this 21 century fig-leaf and which demonstrates why Meacher's analysis has cut very close to the bone. Prior to the creation of the Kingdom of Iraq under a British Mandate Balfour said "I do not care under what system we keep the oil. But I am quite clear it is all-important for us that this oil should be available." Balfour's view was that Britain needed to be the 'guiding spirit' in Mesopotamia (now Iraq), so as to provide a key resource that the British Empire lacked - namely oil.

Within a week of its publication Meacher's 'smokescreen' thesis gained further support from an unexpected source. On the second anniversary of the 911 attacks the British Intelligence and Security Committee produced its report on the UK's pre-war Iraqi intelligence assessment. The report had been prepared following the failure of coalition forces to quickly find weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq after their invasion. The committee provides parliamentary oversight of Britain's intelligence services. Its members are appointed by the Prime Minister and it reports directly to him.

The report contained two particularly remarkable paragraphs which became the focus of the main headlines in much of the British media the next day. The situation was especially significant in context of the earlier words of the Prime Minister to the House of Commons on 18 March as MPs had prepared to vote on whether to go to war: "The possibility of the two coming together - of terrorist groups in possession of weapons of mass destruction or even of a so-called dirty radiological bomb - is now, in my judgement, a real and present danger to Britain and its national security."

The London Times 12 September described as follows the awkward perspective which was suddenly thrown on those words by the two paragraphs in the Intelligence and Security Committee's report: "Tony Blair was facing fresh questions over the Iraq war last night after it was revealed that intelligence chiefs had told him that military action would increase the risk of terrorist attacks. Mr Blair took Britain to war in spite of a warning that the collapse of the Iraqi regime would make it easier for terrorist groups to obtain chemical and biological weapons, and that the threat from al-Qaeda would be heightened by action to depose Saddam. The advice from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which Mr Blair did not disclose before the war, was given in an assessment on February 10, five weeks before the action started. Its release, by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee yesterday, immediately sparked attacks from critics who had said that war would intensify the terrorism risk.... The top-secret assessment, International Terrorism: War with Iraq, stated that there was no intelligence that Iraq had provided chemical and biological materials to al-Qaeda, but judged that in the event of an imminent regime collapse, 'there would be a risk of transfer of such material', to al-Qaeda or another terrorist group".

One implication of this circumstance was that perhaps the real motivation for the war was driven by factors other than efforts to reduce the alleged threat of terrorism from Iraq. By this stage Meacher and Heseltine were looking distinctly on track.

As if that were not bad enough on 14 September another damaging story broke. The BBC reported that the political editor of the Spectator magazine "[in a new book due to be released] alleges Mr Blair secretly agreed to go to war as early as April 2002, when he had a summit with George W Bush at the president's ranch in Texas. He also claims Mr Blair himself had doubts about the intelligence over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction which formed the basis of his justification for war, and had received evidence that Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological capability was actually diminishing".

It is also one which has been more quietly held by some officials at the UN. It was even implied in a submission 30 June to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British parliament made by Air Marshal Sir John Walker, former chief of Defence Intelligence, who concluded his letter by asking "If the US Major-General cries 'Eureka' and finds evidence now, after so long, who is going to be sure of the origin of his evidence?"

By the time the difficulties in finding WMDs in Iraq had blown up into a major post-war political row even cartoons run in the London Times 4th and 5th June portrayed the planting of such weapons by the American and British governments. The concept of using faked evidence to justify war is hardly a new one. And already we know that the US submitted forged documents to the UN in support of its pre-war claims concerning Iraq's alleged nuclear programme.

Indeed, faked evidence was a hallmark of post-World War II US covert operations in Latin America according to former senior CIA officer Ray McGovern. In an article he co-authored in April 2003 on the WMD situation in Iraq McGovern states that "In 1954, for example, it was instrumental in overthrowing the Arbenz government in Guatemala. Arbenz, who was suspected of having Communist leanings, had tried to make the United Fruit Company comply with Guatemalan law. At President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s direction, the CIA organized and armed a force of malcontent Guatemalans living in Nicaragua to invade their home country. The invasion was explained and 'justified' when a cache of Soviet-made weapons planted by the CIA was 'discovered' on Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast. Washington alleged that the weapons were intended to support an attempt by Arbenz to overthrow the Nicaraguan government". McGovern and his co-author do, however, consider that the planting of evidence in Iraq would be a high risk exercise.

The current picture for the invading coalition in Iraq does not look good. According to the New York Times 26 September "A draft of an interim report by David Kay, the American leading the hunt for banned arms in Iraq, says the team has not found any such weapons after nearly four months of intensively searching and interviewing top Iraqi scientists. There is some evidence of chemicals and equipment that could have been put to illicit use. But, to the chagrin of Mr. Bush's top lieutenants, there is nothing more. It remains remotely possible, of course, that something will be found. But Mr. Kay's draft suggests that the weapons are simply not there... it was the fear of weapons of mass destruction placed in the hands of enemy terrorists that made doing something about Iraq seem urgent. If it had seemed unlikely that Mr. Hussein had them, we doubt that Congress or the American people would have endorsed the war. This is clearly an uncomfortable question for the Bush administration. Yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Times editors. Asked whether Americans would have supported this war if weapons of mass destruction had not been at issue, Mr. Powell said the question was too hypothetical to answer. Asked if he, personally, would have supported it, he smiled, thrust his hand out and said, 'It was good to meet you.'".

On 2 October Mr Kay published his report. No WMDs had been found despite a search lasting three months, involving 1200 inspectors and costing $300 million. The Foreign Editor of the London Times 3 October was blunt in her analysis of the report's findings: "There is one astounding judgment in yesterday's report from the Iraq Survey Group. That is that Iraq almost certainly did not have a serious chemicals weapons programme after 1991. US attacks and United Nations sanctions and inspections had made it impossible, it seems, for Iraq to rebuild what Desert Storm had destroyed. That conclusion — although provisional — is damaging to Tony Blair. It is a profound contradiction of the September 2002 dossier, Blair's formal case for war, and in particular, of the claim that Saddam posed an imminent threat. It undermines that position more thoroughly than does the dispute about the now-notorious but narrow claim that Iraq could launch weapons in 45 minutes. It also implies a much wider failure of intelligence".

David Kelly is the British scientist who was recently found dead in a wood near his Oxfordshire home. He was the British government's leading expert on Iraq's non-nuclear 'weapons of mass destruction'. He is believed to have committed suicide following his appearance before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee on 15 July, and the Intelligence and Security Committee on 16 July. Following his death it was revealed that Dr Kelly had been the source for a controversial radio report from BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan.

The report said that there was unhappiness within the intelligence services concerning the content of the British government's 2002 'September dossier' in which it had presented its pre-war assessment of the threat from Iraq. Gilligan claimed that the government had 'sexed up' the document in order to bolster its case against Iraq.

Following the failure to quickly find weapons of mass destruction after the invasion of Iraq the Foreign Affairs Committee had been convened to examine the government's decision to go to war. Prior to his death the committee had wanted to establish if Dr Kelly was the source of Gilligan's story. Dr Kelly told the committee that he did not think he was, even though he confirmed that he had met with Gilligan.

The sudden death of Dr Kelly on 17 July generated further intense controversy. This lead to the setting up of an official inquiry under the jurisdiction of Lord Hutton whose remit was to investigate "the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly". From the outset the inquiry spent a great deal of time examining matters relating to the veracity of the allegations made in Mr Gilligan's original report covering the government's September dossier.

The dossier had included a claim that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons which "are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them".

Gilligan stated in his unscripted radio report of 29 May that "our source says that the dossier, as it was finally published, made the intelligence services unhappy, because, to quote the source, he said, there was basically....unhappiness because it didn't reflect the considered view they were putting forward - that's a quote from our source - and essentially, the 45 minute point was, was probably the most important thing that was added. What this person says is that a week before the publication date of the dossier, it was actually rather a bland production. It didn't - the draft prepared for Mr Blair by the intelligence agencies actually - didn't say very much more than was public knowledge already and Downing Street, our source says, ordered a week before publication, ordered it to be 'sexed up', to be made more exciting and ordered more facts to be, to be discovered." In a later article in the Mail on Sunday Gilligan named the Prime Minister's Director of Communications, Alastair Campbell, in relation to the allegations.

Gilligan was not the only BBC journalist that Dr Kelly had been unofficially speaking to about WMD issues in Iraq following the invasion. He had also spoken to Gavin Hewitt, and to Susan Watts, science editor of BBC Newsnight.

On 30 May, according her recording of their telephone conversation, Dr Kelly told Susan Watts of his view that there was only a 40% chance of some vehicles that had been found since the invasion being mobile biological weapons laboratories or fermentors. Commenting on the tension between the UN and coalition forces in the context of post-invasion WMD inspections Dr Kelly stated that "we've seen it on the mobile labs the politics is so strong that it deflects all practical objectivity" and that "whatever it is it's certainly a very unusual fermentor".

Despite this view from the country's top expert Prime Minister Blair had previously stated on 28 May, according to the Independent that "We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons."

But that was clearly not the view of Dr Kelly who was still waiting to see information from the team doing the investigation. How had Blair reached his view and who was briefing him?

Taken at face value the words of the Prime Minister indicate that British intelligence services were jumping to conclusions without seeking the opinion of the government's own leading expert on Iraq's biological weapons. It appears to have been a clear case of politics taking precedence over objective assessment. This did not promote confidence that attempts to make a retrospective case for the war were being made in complete good faith. It also raised questions as to whether similar manipulation of