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The Guardian (Free subscription) | yesterday
Former spy chief says it was not his place to change then PM's foreword to discredited intelligence dossier The government's spy chief at the time of the invasion of Iraq distanced himself today from Tony Blair's claim that intelligence had established "beyond doubt" that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Sir John Scarlett, then chairman of the joint intelligence committee...
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Raw Story (Free subscription) | 2 hours ago
The United States said Wednesday that it remained opposed to international inspections of biological weapon sites, even though it stressed its commitment to a UN treaty covering such arms and invaded Iraq in part over its alleged stalling of -- UN weapons inspectors. "When it comes to the proliferation of bio weapons and the risk of [...]
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The Earth Times Online Newspaper (Free subscription) | yesterday
London - The former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service MI6 on Tuesday distanced himself from a 2002 government report on the supposed existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. Appearing before the committee investigating t...
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Whitehall 1212 (Free subscription) | yesterday
Looking forward to Sir John Scarlett's evidence to the Iraq inquiry this afternoon. Sir John, friend of Alastair Campbell, chaired Tony Blair's Cabinet Joint Intelligence Committee which produced the flawed intelligence dossier on Saddam Hussain's weapons of mass destruction. If anyone knows where these pesky WMDs are it's Sir John. Meanwhile I laughed this morning at Mike White's take on the...
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Get It Quietly (Free subscription) | yesterday
While I'm blogging everything today, I couldn't let this go : Spy Chief Faces Questions On Iraq Weapons Intelligence Key extract : "In the end it turned out that the information [about Iraq being capable of launching WMDs within 45 minutes] was not credible, it had originated from an emigre taxi driver on the Iraqi-Jordanian border, who had remembered an overheard conversation in the back...
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Whatever It Is, I’m Against It (Free subscription) | 12/08/2009
Tony Blair’s claim that Iraq could launch WMDs on 45 minutes’ notice evidently came from ... a taxi driver. Who said he’d heard it from two army officers talking in the back of his cab. MI6 told Blair it was “verifiably inaccurate” (so why were they passing it on to Downing Street') but he used it anyway.
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CBC Radio 3 (Free subscription) | yesterday
... this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who heard Saddam could have launched his WMDs in 45 minutes . " Basically this is pretty much as bad as the one of the real justifications for launching the most recent Iraq war. Strangely catchy, incredibly annoying song from the Potter Puppet Pals. This holiday, why not ask Mom to make you this fancy TV test pattern knit sweater...
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The Streeb-Greebling Diaries (Free subscription) | yesterday
... was that Iraq could use the long range ballistic missiles which it was developing to deliver WMDs into the heart of Europe, and perhaps even to Britain. Now it transpires that the 45 minute claim: "had originated from an emigre taxi driver on the Iraqi-Jordanian border, who had remembered an overheard conversation in the back of his cab" When I read that I laughed out loud, recalling...
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thoughtstreaming (Free subscription) | yesterday
... who think de-regulation and trickle-down is successful, who believe we got bad intelligence on WMDs, who think man caused global climate change is a hoax, who want to impose Biblical law. For want of a better term let's just call them the Wrongs. Or we could take the term "Deniers" and expand it but either way, this is not about a lack of empathy. I understand them. They are still...
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Armchair Generalist (Free subscription) | 12/07/2009
Well, I passed my fifth year of blogging this weekend. Officially it was December 3, 2004, when I launched this blog. My first real post was titled "Where are the WMDs?", just a few months after Charles Duelfer reported to...
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From My Thumb (Free subscription) | 12/05/2009
Donald Rumsfeld, US secretary of Defence ,said at the beginning of the war that they would recover the WMDs"only when they find people who will say precisely where they are". But that search seemed a joke as well (author's note: Bob Drogin). In fact the WMD story was a complete joke ---The Americans were looking for something far more lucrative than WMDs. Oil was one. Jeremy...
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Laci the Dog (Free subscription) | 12/06/2009
... attacks involving missiles, nuclear devices and biological weapons. Stopping terrorists with WMDs is a good thing, but what about the more immediate threat posed by terrorists with guns? The potential threat of terrorist attacks using guns is far more likely than any of these other scenarios. This leads to a bigger policy issue. In the post 9/11 world where supposedly "everything has...
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Connecting the Dots in the New World Order (Free subscription) | 12/06/2009
Former IAEA chief Hans Blix condemns former US president George W. Bush and former British Premier Tony Blair for waging war in Iraq. In an interview with the British newspaper, the Daily Mail, Blix censured former US and UK governments for having misled their nations by magnifying former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's alleged accumulation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The alleged...
