| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
15 Aug 2003 08:31:37 PM |
| Object: |
Bush poodle Blair's 45-minute claim was nuthin' but a rumor. |
From The Guardian, 8/16/03:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1020033,00.html
45-minute claim on Iraq was hearsay
Vikram Dodd, Nicholas Watt and Richard Norton Taylor
Saturday August 16, 2003
The Guardian
Tony Blair's headline-grabbing claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of
mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do so was based on
hearsay information, the Guardian has learned.
The revelation that the controversial claim is even weaker than
ministers and officials have been saying will embarrass No 10, already
reeling after the first week of the Hutton inquiry into the death of
weapons expert David Kelly.
It came as the Hutton inquiry announced that Alastair Campbell,
Downing Street's communications chief, will testify on Tuesday.
Underlining the danger of the inquiry for the government, Lord Hutton
has called virtually every member of the prime minister's inner
circle.
The government has been under fire for including the allegation in a
September 2002 dossier used to justify the war against Iraq.
The revelation that the 45 minute claim is second hand is contained in
an internal Foreign Office document released by the Hutton inquiry.
It had been thought the basis for the claim came from an Iraqi officer
high in Saddam Hussein's command structure.
In fact it came through an informant, who passed it on to MI6.
The document says the 45 minute claim "came from a reliable and
established source, quoting a well-placed senior officer" - described
by intelligence sources as a senior Iraqi officer still in Iraq.
The government has never admitted the key information was based on
hearsay.
On June 4, Tony Blair told the House of Commons:
"It was alleged that the source for the 45 minute claim was an Iraqi
defector of dubious reliability. He was not an Iraqi defector and he
was an established and reliable source."
Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, said of the claim on May 29:
"That was said on the basis of security service information - a single
source, it wasn't corroborated."
The irony is that the government launched a furious attack on the BBC
for broadcasting allegations that the dossier was "sexed up" based on
a single, anonymous, uncorroborated source.
That source was Dr Kelly.
Mr Campbell told the foreign affairs select committee:
"I find it incredible ... that people can report based on one single
anonymous uncorroborated source."
In fact, the foundation for the government's claim was even shakier,
according to the document: a single anonymous uncorroborated source
quoting another single anonymous uncorroborated source.
The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Menzies Campbell, said
the revelation damaged the government's credibility.
He added:
"This is classic hearsay. It provides an even thinner justification to
go to war. If this is true, neither the prime minister nor the
government have been entirely forthcoming."
A Foreign Office spokesman said:
"The joint intelligence committee made a judgment on the basis of
knowing everything about the nature of the source and the context."
_________________________________________________________
The Bush/Blair team needed sumthin' ta start a war, so why not make
sumthin' up, eh?
Harry
.
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