Sunday, June 26, 2011

Memo reveals intelligence chief wrote dossier on Iraqi WMD knowing that "in terms of WMD Iraq is not that exceptional"/ Guardian

From the Guardian, an article provides new information on how Tony Blair's administration lied to make the case for war in Iraq. What do you call this crime?  Is it treasonous to start a war under false pretenses, costing your country hundreds of lives and billions of dollars?  And what was it for, anyway?
The senior intelligence official responsible for Tony Blair's notorious dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction proposed using the document to mislead the public about the significance of Iraq's banned weapons.
Sir John Scarlett, who as head of the Joint Intelligence Committee was placed "in charge" of writing the September 2002 dossier, sent a memo to Blair's foreign affairs adviser referring to "the benefit of obscuring the fact that in terms of WMD Iraq is not that exceptional".
The memo, released under the Freedom of Information Act, has been described as one of the most significant documents on the dossier yet published.
The disclosure supports the evidence of the former intelligence official Michael Laurie, who told the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war that it was widely understood that the dossier was intended to make a case for war and misrepresented intelligence to this particular end...

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