Reverse Swing
Greatest exponent
Registered: Apr 2012
Posts: 3370 - Threads: 69
Location: Lord's
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Quote:
| Vital intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq 10 years ago was based on "fabrication" and "wishful thinking", a new documentary claims.
A BBC Panorama investigation, broadcast to mark the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, suggests that US and UK security services relied on several pieces of questionable information, while dismissing others that were contradictory.
The war, which started on March 20, 2003, lasted over six years, claimed the lives of 179 UK personnel, more than 100,000 Iraqis, and and cost more than £9 billion.
Britain ended combat operations in 2009 but a decade on the war remains unfinished business, with ongoing questions about the legality of the invasion, and the conduct of British troops.
Panorama - The Spies Who Fooled The World - documents the chain of secret information that contributed to the decision to invade, including new testimonies from intelligence sources.
It tells how claims from a few sources that Iraq was manufacturing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) spiralled into apparently sound intelligence used to justify the war.
The programme alleges that certain intelligence was relied on out of wishful thinking, with one source telling the programme the Iraq War was borne out of "choice" rather than "necessity".
In his first TV interview on the subject August Hanning, former head of German Intelligence, said Iraqi spy Rafed Al Janabi - codenamed Curveball - told German secret services he had witnessed the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons, including mobile facilities to produce them.
The information was passed by the Germans to American and British intelligence, along with concerns about its reliability, he said.
Former CIA Europe Division chief Tyler Drumheller also claimed he passed warnings about Curveball's claims up the chain of command, while Mr Hanning said he also sent a personal cable to then CIA director George Tenet. Mr Tenet denies receiving the warnings, the programme says.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/intelligence-based-fabrication-000518886.html#AeBBfeX |
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It was all a complete and utter lie. Tony Blair long before the invasion agreed he would back Bush in the conflict, most likely at the Crawford Summit - DESPITE France, Germany and Russia all against the invasion.
Alastair Campbell - the Joseph Goebbels of the Blair administration, sexed up the dossier, and then threatened the BBC when one of their journalists RIGHTLY pointed out the dossier was a lie. There was no WMDs - as confirmed by Hans Blix and Kofi Annan and the 45-minute claim was nonsense - Jack Straw repudiated the claim a few years later.
Tony Blair misled the House of Commons when he made that claim. Look at the price Iraq has paid - at least 600,000 casualties.
Western Democracy at its finest. The irony of imposing an ideology on the innocent is all but lost to the West.
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18-03-2013 20:03 PM
