BRITISH COMPLICITY - 'OPERATION ROCKINGHAM'

"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

"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

"The 1994 Scott Inquiry into Britain's illegal supply of arms to Saddam Hussein found that deception was widespread among senior British officials and diplomats. One of those commended by Sir Richard Scott for the honesty of his evidence was the former head of the Iraq Desk in Whitehall, Mark Higson, who described 'a culture of lying' in the Foreign Office."
IRAQ: THE LYING GAME
The Mirror, 27 August, 2002

"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....Many in British intelligence believe the planned parliamentary inquiry by MPs on the Intelligence and Security Committee will pass the blame for the use of selective intelligence to the JIC, which includes senior intelligence figures. Intelligence sources say this would be unfair as they claim the JIC was following political instructions."
Revealed: the secret cabal which spun for Blair
Sunday Herald, 8 June 2003

"Proof of Operation Rockingham came to light in a Sunday Herald investigation and its existence was backed up in a series of astonishingly frank interviews with Scott Ritter, the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq who served on the staff of General Norman Schwarzkopf -- who led the allied forces in the first Gulf war -- before joining the UN weapons inspections team, Unscom. Ritter was also a US military intelligence officer for eight years. His claims about Rockingham are supported by UK parliamentary documents and briefings with other British intelligence sources....Staff once connected to Rockingham are now thought to be involved in the new Iraqi Survey Group which has been sent to Iraq in a bid to find WMDs....To back up claims that Operation Rockingham was deliberately 'cherry-picking' intelligence and producing misleading reports, Ritter described how its staff blatantly ignored proof of Saddam's compliance. 'Britain and America were involved in a programme of joint exploitation of intelligence from Iraqi defectors. There were mountains of information coming from these defectors, and Rockingham staff were receiving it and then selectively culling reports that sustained the claims that weapons of mass destruction were in existence. They ignored the vast majority of the data which mitigated against such claims.'...'In terms of using selective intelligence,' Ritter said, 'this policy was coming from the very highest levels.' The only written reference to Operation Rockingham is found in a 1998 British parliamentary report. In it, Brigadier Richard Holmes, who was giving evidence to the defence committee, refers, in an off-the-cuff aside, to Operation Rockingham and linked it to Unscom inspections in Iraq. Some of the Rockingham staff were military officers, others came from the intelligence services, such as MI6, and others were civilian ministry of defence personnel. From 1991 to 1998 it had three chiefs, one man and two women.... Both the MoD and Downing Street refused to comment on Ritter's allegations about Operation Rockingham, saying they didn't make statements on intelligence matters. However, a number of British intelligence sources have spoken to the Sunday Herald about the operation....Both Ritter and British intelligence sources said the selective intelligence gathered by Operation Rockingham would have been passed to the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) which was behind the dossiers published by Tony Blair and his government, claiming Iraq had WMDs. The most contentious parts of the government's case for war was that Iraq could launch WMDs in just 45 minutes and that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger. Intelligence sources say the 45 minutes claim was inserted at Downing Street's behest to make the document 'sexier' and the International Atomic Energy Agency has said the uranium claim was based on forged documents. British intelligence sources have equated the JIC with the Office of Special Plans (OSP), an intelligence agency set up inside the Pentagon by Rumsfeld. It has been accused of gathering selective intelligence at the request of its political masters to build a misleading case for war. Ritter says Operation Rockingham was supplying the JIC with intelligence reports, together with MI6. One British intelligence source said: 'The JIC is, in my view, the mirror organisation of the OSP. They both did the same thing. The JIC was receiving information from all the intelligence agencies.'...Intelligence sources say the Niger claim emanated from Italian Intelligence. The Italians had apparently been asked to help the US and UK make the case for war and passed the document to the British. 'I don't know whether the Italians were involved in the forgery, or if they purchased the forgery, but everyone knew it was nonsense,' an intelligence source claimed....Intelligence sources say the 45 minute claim was linked to the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the controversial Iraqi opposition-in-exile organisation. If any connection to the INC was proved, it would completely discredit the 45 minute claim as no intelligence agency could withstand allegations that the INC would have exaggerated, and possibly distorted, information in order to secure the fall of Saddam. A UK intelligence source described the 45 minute claim as 'bollocks' and Ritter said the vast majority of information stemming from the INC was 'fabricated'.....The Prime Minister has continually passed responsibility for the nature of intelligence to the JIC saying: 'The intelligence that formed the basis of what we put out last September, that intelligence came from JIC assessment.' Blair, however, has refused to grant an open, independent judicial inquiry. One British intelligence source added: 'The JIC briefed the PM. I think it will be the spooks who take the fall for this.' The JIC is composed of senior members of all the UK's intelligence services. 'They were charged to get specific intelligence on WMD and to make a case for war,' a source said. 'But they were doing that on the say-so of politicians.'"
Blair's secret weapon
Sunday Herald, 8 June 2003

"Last September 24th, as Congress prepared to vote on the resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to wage war in Iraq, a group of senior intelligence officials, including George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq’s weapons capability.....According to two of those present at the briefing.... this time the argument that Iraq had a nuclear program under way was buttressed by a new and striking fact: the C.I.A. had recently received intelligence showing that, between 1999 and 2001, .....On the same day, in London, Tony Blair’s government made public a dossier containing much of the information that the Senate committee was being given in secret—that Iraq had sought to buy 'significant quantities of uranium' from an unnamed African country... President Bush cited the uranium deal, along with the aluminum tubes, in his State of the Union Message, on January 28th, while crediting Britain as the source of the information: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought 'significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'....Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes.... Some I.A.E.A. investigators.... speculated that MI6—the branch of British intelligence responsible for foreign operations—had become involved, perhaps through contacts in Italy.... 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

"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...."
Foreward by the Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Tony Blair MP
IRAQ’S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION THE ASSESSMENT OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
September 2002

"I would simply point out to the hon.Gentleman that, in respect of that dossier and the first dossier, not a single fact in them is actually disputed."
British Prime Minister, House of Commons, 25 June 2003

"In his report, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, said there was no evidence that Iraq had restarted the nuclear weapons programme it was forced to abandon after the Gulf War. He challenged US and UK allegations on two key issues. [The first was that] Reports that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger were based on documents that were 'not authentic'.."
Pressure mounts on Iraq
BBC Online, 7 March 2003

"Mr Blair appeared to be preparing the ground for a failure to find any 'live' weapons when he said throughout his grilling that evidence of 'WMD programmes' would be found. ... His words appeared to chime with a subtle shift in rhetoric by the Bush Administration. Before the war, President Bush clearly stated that Saddam’s regime 'possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons', but on June 9 that changed. He said: 'Iraq had a weapons programme. Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons programme. I am absolutely convinced that with time we’ll find out they did have a weapons programme.'...”
Robust Blair set for shift over Saddam's arsenal
London Times, 9 July 2003

"Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary who resigned over the Iraq war, said that evidence of programmes did not amount to the weapons that the British people were led to believe were the cause for war. Mr Cook told The Times that the threat from WMD was behind the urgency for going to war in March. 'We were told that Parliament had to vote for war in March because the situation was so urgent that we could not give Hans Blix (the chief UN weapons inspector) the few more months he needed. 'That urgency only works if there were real weapons. It does not apply to some fabric that could at some future date be made into a weapon.'..."
No 10 confident about evidence
London Times, 11 July 2003

"The CIA tried unsuccessfully in early September 2002 to persuade the British government to drop from an official intelligence paper a reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa that President Bush included in his State of the Union address four months later, senior Bush administration officials said yesterday. 'We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material,' a senior administration official familiar with the intelligence program said. The British government rejected the U.S. suggestion, saying it had separate intelligence unavailable to the United States."
CIA Asked Britain To Drop Iraq Claim
Washington Post, 11 July 2003

"U.S. intelligence officials had doubts about the quality of a British intelligence report alleging Iraq  was seeking uranium from Africa in the weeks just before and after President Bush made the allegation in his State of the Union address in January, senior U.S. officials said Thursday... The officials said those doubts were expressed to British officials and across several agencies of the federal government before Bush gave his speech. CBS, ABC and CNN reported that CIA  officials who saw a draft of Bush's speech even questioned whether his statement was too strong given the quality of the British intelligence but the remark was left in provided it was attributed to the British. "
U.S. Said to Doubt British Intelligence
Associated Press, 11 July 2003

"A high-ranking American official who investigated claims for the CIA that Iraq was seeking uranium to restart its nuclear programme last night accused Britain and the US of deliberately ignoring his findings to make the case for war against Saddam Hussein. The retired US ambassador said it was all but impossible that British intelligence had not received his report - drawn up by the CIA - which revealed that documents, purporting to show a deal between Iraq and the west African state of Niger, were forgeries.... The allegation will add to the suspicions of opponents to the war that last week's row between the BBC and Tony Blair's director of communications Alastair Campbell was a sideshow to draw attention away from more serious questions about the justification for the war.... The comments of the former US diplomat appear to be at odds with those of the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. Appearing before a parliamentary committee last week, Mr Straw said the British intelligence community had not known of the forged documents' existence' at the time when [the September dossier] was put together'... During last week's hearings by the Foreign Affairs Committee, MPs cited repeated reports that the forged documents .... had originally reached the CIA via British intelligence. 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.... Neither the US nor Britain ever gave the IAEA any other information to back up their allegations on Iraq's uranium-buying activities, despite the 'separate sources' cited by Mr Straw."
Ministers knew war papers were forged, says diplomat
Independent, 29 June 2003

"One western diplomat said: 'As far as I know, the only other evidence Britain has about the Niger connection is based on intelligence coming from other western countries which saw the same forgeries. Blair's claim that he has other evidence is nonsense. These foreign intelligence agencies are basing their claims on the same forgeries as the Brits.' The diplomat's accusations tally with a letter sent in April, before the White House climbdown, by the State Department to Democrat House of Representative's member Henry Waxman, who has been demanding answers on the deception carried out against the American and British people. In it, the State Department admits that it received intelligence from the UK and another 'western European ally' -- which many believe to be Italy -- that Iraq was trying to buy Niger uranium. But it adds: 'not until March 4 did we learn that, in fact, the second western European government had based its assessment on the evidence already available to the US that was subsequently discredited'. In other words, as one intelligence source said: 'It was based on the same crap the British used'. Given the letter is dated April 29, this information invites the question: why did it take until last week for the White House to admit the Niger connection was rubbish?"
Niger and Iraq: the war's biggest lie?
Glasgow Sunday Herald, 14 July 2003

US rejects British claim over uranium - London Times

"Britain has a complicated and rather bureaucratic political control over its intelligence and security community and one that tends to apply itself to long-term targets and strategic intelligence programs, but has little real influence on the behaviour and operations of SIS or MI5. Not so much ‘oversight’ as 'blindsight'. Despite the cosmetic changes of recent years and their formal establishment as legal Government organizations, there is still little true accountability for their actions or a valid test of their overall efficiency. This myriad of organizations include the four main elements of the UK Intelligence Community; the SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) responsible for foreign intelligence and counter intelligence, The Security Service (MI5), responsible for internal security and counter-espionage within both the UK and Commonwealth countries,  The GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters, SIGINT and COMSEC agency and the DIS, Defence Intelligence Staff, responsible for the intelligence and security activities within the UK's armed forces. They report to the JIC and through them to the Civil Service (PSIS) and finally the Ministerial Committee (MIS)."
UK INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY REPORT
AFI-Research, August 2003

"I think it would be a fantastic thing if we got rid of Saddam, but the purpose is disarmament. Disarmament is the purpose of what we are doing."
Tony Blair, Labour Party Annual Conference, 3 October 2002

".. the [British] attorney general based his legal justification for war [solely] on the necessity to disarm Saddam Hussein..."
Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook
Newsweek, 30 May 2003

"In a book based on his time in Downing Street in the run-up to the war and during the hostilities, Sir Peter Stothard, the former Editor of The Times, tells of a conversation between Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair’s director of
communications, and an unnamed White House official just after Mr Blair’s speech [on Iraq] and as potential rebels queued up for a final chat with the Prime Minister... The Times has learnt that the conversation was about the alert to journalists that they were being mobilised. Mr Campbell was concerned that the moment US journalists were told forces were preparing to move, word would get to Britain during the Commons debate. If any action became public before Mr Blair had secured Commons backing, it could have had a damaging effect.... Mr Blair, The Times understands, told President Bush that there should be no overt action by either country until the Commons vote. Mr Campbell’s words show how worried he was that action by American special forces — which unlike the British had journalists 'embedded' with them — could become public even before the crucial Commons vote was taken.... Today’s disclosure will give added ammunition to war critics who say that Mr Blair had no choice but to dance to Mr Bush’s tune."
US was straining for war before Commons vote
London Times, 28 June 2003

"President Bush, asked about the Niger issue at a news conference during his visit to South Africa, did not answer directly but said that he was 'certain that Saddam Hussein had a weapons of mass destruction programme'. Like Mr Blair, he has dropped the assertion that Iraq actually had weapons. Both now say that it had a 'programme.' "
Did Iraq try to get African uranium?
BBC Online 9 July

"There is no longer any serious doubt that Bush administration officials deceived us into war. The key question now is why so many influential people are in denial, unwilling to admit the obvious....  even people who aren't partisan Republicans shy away from confronting the administration's dishonest case for war, because they don't want to face the implications."
Denial and Deception
New York Times, 24 June 2003

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