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    Default Tony B'liar lied and lied again

    I am not sure if the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilcot_Inquiry"]Chilcot Inquiry[/ame], which has just opened in London, has had much coverage in the US thus far. I suspect this will change soon enough.

    Blair lied and lied again: Mandarins reveal that 10 days before Iraq invasion PM knew Saddam couldn't use WMDs



    By Tim Shipman
    Last updated at 10:57 AM on 26th November 2009





    No chemical weapons: Tony Blair speaks to British soldiers



    The full extent of how Tony Blair misled the public about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction before and after the Iraq War was laid bare yesterday.
    The Chilcot Inquiry heard that just ten days before the invasion of Iraq Mr Blair was told Saddam had no way of using weapons of mass destruction.
    And weapons experts revealed that the former Prime Minister took Britain to war based on intelligence that his own spies rated just 'four out of ten' for accuracy.
    On the eve of the conflict, intelligence chiefs told Mr Blair that the Iraqi dictator had no warheads capable of delivering chemical weapons, dramatically undermining the Prime Minister's case for war.

    Yet Mr Blair gave the go-ahead for the invasion despite strong evidence that Iraq was no threat to Britain.
    Then, after the war, officials had to tell Mr Blair not to 'declare success too rapidly' in the quest to find WMD in Iraq as he continued to make misleading statements claiming that 'massive evidence' had been found.

    The revelations reinforce the case that intelligence evidence that Saddam was no threat was ignored by Mr Blair to take Britain to war on a false prospectus.
    Sir William Ehrman, former Director General of Defence and Intelligence at the Foreign Office, said that on March 10, 2003 - ten days before the start of the war - British spies reported that Iraq had 'disassembled' what chemical weapons it had.
    He said: 'On March 10 we got a report saying that the chemical weapons might have remained disassembled and that Saddam hadn't yet ordered their re-assembly and he might lack warheads capable of effective dispersal of agents.'
    The evidence was summarised in a Joint Intelligence Committee report circulated in Whitehall on March 19.
    Sir William blamed 'contradictory intelligence' for the failure to put the brakes on.






    Blood on your hands: A protester dressed as Tony Blair outside the inquiry into the Iraq war

    But Tim Dowse, Foreign Office head of counter-proliferation between 2000 and 2002, also revealed that a month earlier, in February 2003, UN weapons inspector Hans Blix had made clear that he did not believe the mythical weapons existed.

    'He raised it at a meeting with ministers,' Mr Dowse said.


    More...




    The most damning testimony concerned Downing Street's decision to write the now infamous dossier in September 2002 to make the case for war.

    Both WMD experts made clear that 'huge gaps' in intelligence on Iraq were flagged up to ministers, leaving them with no excuse when the caveats were removed from the final dossier.

    Sir William said experts concluded that there never was 'an imminent threat' from Iraq, describing it only as a 'clear and present threat'.









    Risk: Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il were of greater concern than Iraq
    He explained that intelligence knowledge of Saddam's weapons programmes was 'patchy' in May 2001, 'sporadic and patchy' in March 2002, and revealed that an August 2002 briefing note for ministers admitted 'we know very little' about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons work since 1998, when weapons inspectors were ejected.

    Both witnesses said that in the years before the war Iraq was not even seen as the main threat.
    Sir William said: 'In terms of nuclear and missiles, I think Iran, North Korea and Libya were probably of greater concern than Iraq.' Mr Dowse added: 'It wasn't top of the list.'




    Saddam Hussein had only 'sketchy' links to Al Qaeda


    The Government also tried to justify the war in Iraq because WMDs could fall into the hands of terrorists. But Mr Dowse said that Saddam had only 'sketchy' links to Al Qaeda, had 'stepped further back' after the 9/11 attacks and had never passed WMD to terrorists.

    By September 2002, as the dossier was being written, Sir William said the intelligence about Saddam's WMD 'remained limited'.
    He added: 'The biggest gap in all of that, and one which ministers were extremely well aware of and used extensively, was the lack of interviews with scientists.'
    Yet in his foreword to the dodgy dossier, Mr Blair claimed 'beyond doubt that Saddam has continued to produce biological weapons'.

    That claim was condemned by the Butler Report into the intelligence in 2004 as 'not a statement it was possible to make' because 'intelligence does not have that degree of certainty'.
    Mr Dowse, who worked on the dossier, made clear he had not seen Mr Blair's foreword before publication and took aim at the former Prime Minister, saying: 'With hindsight the Butler committee made a fair comment.'
    Sir William admitted that weapons inspectors said that six out of ten intelligence reports proved inaccurate. 'Four out of ten as a strike rate is pretty good,' he said.

    But historian Sir Lawrence Freedman, for the inquiry, interrupted: 'Not when you are going to war.'
    Mr Dowse later cast serious doubt on the accuracy of Mr Blair's claims after the war, when the Iraq Study Group (ISG) was in the process of exposing that there was no WMD in Iraq.




    Day one: Chairman John Chilcot (3rd L) speaks during the Iraq Inquiry in central London


    In December 2003, nine months after the invasion, Mr Blair was still insisting: 'The ISG has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories.'
    Mr Dowse said: 'I did not advise him to use those words', and admitted that officials had told ministers not to 'declare success too rapidly'.
    He said: 'My concern was that we should not announce things until we were absolutely certain of our ground because it would have been a disaster, frankly, in PR terms.'
    Last night LibDem foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: 'This new evidence shows that the intelligence was, if anything, pointing towards Iraq becoming less of a threat.
    'A leader of courage and conviction would have used such evidence to halt the drumbeat for war, but Blair just turned a blind eye to intelligence that contradicted his case.'

    And 45-minute warning was misleading too...

    Tony Blair's claim that Saddam Hussein could hit British targets in just 45 minutes was misleading, the Iraq Inquiry heard.
    The claim was the centrepiece of the so-called dodgy dossier published by Downing Street in September 2002 to justify the case for war.
    But Tim Dowse, Foreign Office head of counter proliferation when the dossier was being drawn up, said that it only ever referred to short-range battlefield rockets, not long-range missiles.
    That crucial distinction was omitted from the dossier and encouraged the drift to war.




    How 'threat' was reported

    Mr Dowse said: 'When I saw the report I didn't give it any particular significance because it didn't seem out of line with what we generally assessed to be Iraq's capability in terms of weapons.
    'I assumed it was referring to multibarrelled rocket launchers that could be rapidly deployed in a battlefield. It subsequently took on a rather iconic status that I didn't think those of us who saw the initial report gave it.'
    Asked about suggestions that the 45-minute claim referred to WMDs which could be used by Iraq to strike another nation, Mr Dowse said: 'I don't think we ever said that it was for use in a ballistic missile in that way.'
    Inquiry panel member Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman pointed out: 'But you didn't say it wasn't.'
    But Mr Dowse admitted that he had pushed for the inclusion of a paragraph on how some Iraqi missiles could hit British bases in Cyprus.
    That became conflated with the 45 minute claim at the time, leaving many members of the public with the impression that weapons of mass destruction could be deployed on longrange missiles to hit British targets.
    The dossier eventually read that Saddam's 'military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them. I am quite clear that Saddam will go to extreme lengths, indeed has already done so, to hide these weapons and avoid giving them up'.
    In his foreword, Mr Blair wrote: '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, and that he has been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme.'





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    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0Y0Jj8gN3
    Last edited by cancel2 2022; 11-26-2009 at 04:01 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tom prendergast View Post
    I am not sure if the Chilcot Inquiry, which has just opened in London, has had much coverage in the US thus far. I suspect this will change soon enough.

    Blair lied and lied again: Mandarins reveal that 10 days before Iraq invasion PM knew Saddam couldn't use WMDs



    By Tim Shipman
    Last updated at 10:57 AM on 26th November 2009





    No chemical weapons: Tony Blair speaks to British soldiers



    The full extent of how Tony Blair misled the public about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction before and after the Iraq War was laid bare yesterday.
    The Chilcot Inquiry heard that just ten days before the invasion of Iraq Mr Blair was told Saddam had no way of using weapons of mass destruction.
    And weapons experts revealed that the former Prime Minister took Britain to war based on intelligence that his own spies rated just 'four out of ten' for accuracy.
    On the eve of the conflict, intelligence chiefs told Mr Blair that the Iraqi dictator had no warheads capable of delivering chemical weapons, dramatically undermining the Prime Minister's case for war.

    Yet Mr Blair gave the go-ahead for the invasion despite strong evidence that Iraq was no threat to Britain.
    Then, after the war, officials had to tell Mr Blair not to 'declare success too rapidly' in the quest to find WMD in Iraq as he continued to make misleading statements claiming that 'massive evidence' had been found.

    The revelations reinforce the case that intelligence evidence that Saddam was no threat was ignored by Mr Blair to take Britain to war on a false prospectus.
    Sir William Ehrman, former Director General of Defence and Intelligence at the Foreign Office, said that on March 10, 2003 - ten days before the start of the war - British spies reported that Iraq had 'disassembled' what chemical weapons it had.
    He said: 'On March 10 we got a report saying that the chemical weapons might have remained disassembled and that Saddam hadn't yet ordered their re-assembly and he might lack warheads capable of effective dispersal of agents.'
    The evidence was summarised in a Joint Intelligence Committee report circulated in Whitehall on March 19.
    Sir William blamed 'contradictory intelligence' for the failure to put the brakes on.






    Blood on your hands: A protester dressed as Tony Blair outside the inquiry into the Iraq war

    But Tim Dowse, Foreign Office head of counter-proliferation between 2000 and 2002, also revealed that a month earlier, in February 2003, UN weapons inspector Hans Blix had made clear that he did not believe the mythical weapons existed.

    'He raised it at a meeting with ministers,' Mr Dowse said.


    More...




    The most damning testimony concerned Downing Street's decision to write the now infamous dossier in September 2002 to make the case for war.

    Both WMD experts made clear that 'huge gaps' in intelligence on Iraq were flagged up to ministers, leaving them with no excuse when the caveats were removed from the final dossier.

    Sir William said experts concluded that there never was 'an imminent threat' from Iraq, describing it only as a 'clear and present threat'.









    Risk: Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il were of greater concern than Iraq
    He explained that intelligence knowledge of Saddam's weapons programmes was 'patchy' in May 2001, 'sporadic and patchy' in March 2002, and revealed that an August 2002 briefing note for ministers admitted 'we know very little' about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons work since 1998, when weapons inspectors were ejected.

    Both witnesses said that in the years before the war Iraq was not even seen as the main threat.
    Sir William said: 'In terms of nuclear and missiles, I think Iran, North Korea and Libya were probably of greater concern than Iraq.' Mr Dowse added: 'It wasn't top of the list.'




    Saddam Hussein had only 'sketchy' links to Al Qaeda


    The Government also tried to justify the war in Iraq because WMDs could fall into the hands of terrorists. But Mr Dowse said that Saddam had only 'sketchy' links to Al Qaeda, had 'stepped further back' after the 9/11 attacks and had never passed WMD to terrorists.

    By September 2002, as the dossier was being written, Sir William said the intelligence about Saddam's WMD 'remained limited'.
    He added: 'The biggest gap in all of that, and one which ministers were extremely well aware of and used extensively, was the lack of interviews with scientists.'
    Yet in his foreword to the dodgy dossier, Mr Blair claimed 'beyond doubt that Saddam has continued to produce biological weapons'.

    That claim was condemned by the Butler Report into the intelligence in 2004 as 'not a statement it was possible to make' because 'intelligence does not have that degree of certainty'.
    Mr Dowse, who worked on the dossier, made clear he had not seen Mr Blair's foreword before publication and took aim at the former Prime Minister, saying: 'With hindsight the Butler committee made a fair comment.'
    Sir William admitted that weapons inspectors said that six out of ten intelligence reports proved inaccurate. 'Four out of ten as a strike rate is pretty good,' he said.

    But historian Sir Lawrence Freedman, for the inquiry, interrupted: 'Not when you are going to war.'
    Mr Dowse later cast serious doubt on the accuracy of Mr Blair's claims after the war, when the Iraq Study Group (ISG) was in the process of exposing that there was no WMD in Iraq.




    Day one: Chairman John Chilcot (3rd L) speaks during the Iraq Inquiry in central London


    In December 2003, nine months after the invasion, Mr Blair was still insisting: 'The ISG has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories.'
    Mr Dowse said: 'I did not advise him to use those words', and admitted that officials had told ministers not to 'declare success too rapidly'.
    He said: 'My concern was that we should not announce things until we were absolutely certain of our ground because it would have been a disaster, frankly, in PR terms.'
    Last night LibDem foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: 'This new evidence shows that the intelligence was, if anything, pointing towards Iraq becoming less of a threat.
    'A leader of courage and conviction would have used such evidence to halt the drumbeat for war, but Blair just turned a blind eye to intelligence that contradicted his case.'

    And 45-minute warning was misleading too...

    Tony Blair's claim that Saddam Hussein could hit British targets in just 45 minutes was misleading, the Iraq Inquiry heard.
    The claim was the centrepiece of the so-called dodgy dossier published by Downing Street in September 2002 to justify the case for war.
    But Tim Dowse, Foreign Office head of counter proliferation when the dossier was being drawn up, said that it only ever referred to short-range battlefield rockets, not long-range missiles.
    That crucial distinction was omitted from the dossier and encouraged the drift to war.




    How 'threat' was reported

    Mr Dowse said: 'When I saw the report I didn't give it any particular significance because it didn't seem out of line with what we generally assessed to be Iraq's capability in terms of weapons.
    'I assumed it was referring to multibarrelled rocket launchers that could be rapidly deployed in a battlefield. It subsequently took on a rather iconic status that I didn't think those of us who saw the initial report gave it.'
    Asked about suggestions that the 45-minute claim referred to WMDs which could be used by Iraq to strike another nation, Mr Dowse said: 'I don't think we ever said that it was for use in a ballistic missile in that way.'
    Inquiry panel member Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman pointed out: 'But you didn't say it wasn't.'
    But Mr Dowse admitted that he had pushed for the inclusion of a paragraph on how some Iraqi missiles could hit British bases in Cyprus.
    That became conflated with the 45 minute claim at the time, leaving many members of the public with the impression that weapons of mass destruction could be deployed on longrange missiles to hit British targets.
    The dossier eventually read that Saddam's 'military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them. I am quite clear that Saddam will go to extreme lengths, indeed has already done so, to hide these weapons and avoid giving them up'.
    In his foreword, Mr Blair wrote: '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, and that he has been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme.'





    Explore more:



    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0Y0Jj8gN3
    Well done, Tom. I have been waiting for this. I can remember some of these points being raised on the WOT board prior to the invasion and the arguments that ensued.
    Clearly one of the reasons he didnt get the European job.
    http://www.justplainpolitics.com/blog.php?u=237
    If you feel so inclined a comment would be appreciated.

    Respect a believers right to believe, but they should damn well repect our right to challenge such utterly illogical notions.


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    Funny, I saw plenty of chemical weapons during my tour.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lowaicue View Post
    Well done, Tom. I have been waiting for this. I can remember some of these points being raised on the WOT board prior to the invasion and the arguments that ensued.
    Clearly one of the reasons he didnt get the European job.
    There is much more to come out, hopefully Bush, Blair et al will be seen to be the charlatans they really are.

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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptBillyTheKid View Post
    Funny, I saw plenty of chemical weapons during my tour.
    So please elucidate, if you have personal experience I would like to know.

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    I've mentioned it before a couple times, maybe you weren't active in those threads.

    Anyways I did security for EOD (the bomb squad) and supply convoys. During a few stops I saw several stashes of disassembled chemical shells for howitzers. Sarin gas, Mustard gas, and a couple others that I can't remember (Arabic markings and all). Anyways I asked around and it was our guys who discovered them and disassembled them. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed closer then a few meters, but it was at least a couple hundered each time I saw them.
    WATERMARK, GREATEST OF THE TRINITY, ON CHIK-FIL-A
    Quote Originally Posted by Sigmund Freud View Post
    The fields of mediocre chicken sandwiches shall be sowed with salt, so that nothing may ever grow there again.
    www.gunsbeerfreedom.blogspot.com

    www.gunsbeerfreedom.blogspot.com

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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptBillyTheKid View Post
    I've mentioned it before a couple times, maybe you weren't active in those threads.

    Anyways I did security for EOD (the bomb squad) and supply convoys. During a few stops I saw several stashes of disassembled chemical shells for howitzers. Sarin gas, Mustard gas, and a couple others that I can't remember (Arabic markings and all). Anyways I asked around and it was our guys who discovered them and disassembled them. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed closer then a few meters, but it was at least a couple hundered each time I saw them.
    I believe that this report covers this point.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tom prendergast View Post
    I believe that this report covers this point.
    Somewhat, as those aren't the kind of weapons to attack another nation. They are however WMDs. I will agree with you that the threat of a NBC attack was exaggerated. But to say that Saddam's WMD stockpile was non-existent is wrong.
    WATERMARK, GREATEST OF THE TRINITY, ON CHIK-FIL-A
    Quote Originally Posted by Sigmund Freud View Post
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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptBillyTheKid View Post
    Somewhat, as those aren't the kind of weapons to attack another nation. They are however WMDs. I will agree with you that the threat of a NBC attack was exaggerated. But to say that Saddam's WMD stockpile was non-existent is wrong.
    The main problem is that Bush was discussing regime change even before he became President and he was looking for a reason to invade Iraq.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tom prendergast View Post
    The main problem is that Bush was discussing regime change even before he became President and he was looking for a reason to invade Iraq.
    I wouldn't say it's a problem until the true reason we invaded is disclosed (oil isn't the reason).
    WATERMARK, GREATEST OF THE TRINITY, ON CHIK-FIL-A
    Quote Originally Posted by Sigmund Freud View Post
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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptBillyTheKid View Post
    I wouldn't say it's a problem until the true reason we invaded is disclosed (oil isn't the reason).
    Here is something for you to think about.

    US discussed Iraq regime change a month after Bush took office, senior British officials say


    By John Byrne
    Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 -- 9:13 am
    html .fb_share_link { padding:2px 0 0 20px; height:16px; background:url(http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.ph...h/4273uaqa.gif) no-repeat top left; }Share on Facebook Stumble This!







    The chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee in 2001 told investigators Monday that elements of the Bush Administration were pushing for regime change in Iraq in early 2001, months before the 9/11 attacks and two years before President George W. Bush formally announced the Iraq war.
    Sir Peter Ricketts, now-Secretary at the Foreign Office, said that US and British officials believed at the time that measures against Iraq were failing: "sanctions, an incentive to lift sanctions if Saddam allowed the United Weapons inspectors to return, and the 'no fly' zones over the north and south of the country."
    Ricketts also said that US officials had raised the prospect of regime change in Iraq, asserting that the British weren't supportive of the idea at the time.
    "We were conscious that there were other voices in Washington, some of whom were talking about regime change," Ricketts said.
    The head of the British Foreign Office's Middle East department, Sir William Patey, told the inquiry that his office was aware of regime change talk from some parts of the Bush Administration shortly after they took office in 2001.
    Story continues below...
    "In February 2001 we were aware of these drum beats from Washington and internally we discussed it," Patey said. "Our policy was to stay away from that."
    "We didn't think Saddam was a good thing, and it would be great if he went, but we didn't have an explicit policy for trying to get rid of him," he added.
    A third official, who was policy director for the British Defense Ministry at the time, said the discussions between the US and Britain "weren't serious."
    "The question of regime overthrow was, I recall, mentioned but it was quite clear that there was no proposition being put in our direction on that," he quipped.
    News of the British officials comments were first reported Tuesday in the UK Independent.
    Interestingly, the head of Britain's Intelligence Committee told investigators that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to be in charge of US policy on Iraq until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
    "Up till then we felt that dealing with the State Department, we were dealing with the people who were forming the policy," Ricketts said.
    British investigators are probing how Britain got into the Iraq war and if officials misled the public. Already, a leaked report has shown that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair covered up British military plans for a full Iraq invasion throughout 2002, claiming at the time that Britain's objective was "disarmament, not regime change."
    According to Britain's Sunday Telegraph, the leaked report condemns the almost complete absence of contingency planning as a potential breach of Geneva Convention obligations to safeguard civilians. Coalition forces were “ill-prepared and equipped to deal with the problems in the first 100 days” of the occupation.
    Blair's lies to Parliament and the public, widespread problems with the Army's supply chain and radio systems, and poor planning for "once Baghdad had fallen" are now confirmed in the public eye.
    Particularly egregious are statements Blair made to Parliament in the build up to the invasion. On Sept 24, 2002, Mr. Blair told members of the British Parliament, “In respect of any military options, we are not at the stage of deciding those options but, of course, it is important — should we get to that point — that we have the fullest possible discussion of those options.”

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    Oh, Christ, Clinton wanted regime change too.

    Quote Originally Posted by tom prendergast View Post
    Here is something for you to think about.

    US discussed Iraq regime change a month after Bush took office, senior British officials say


    By John Byrne
    Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 -- 9:13 am
    html .fb_share_link { padding:2px 0 0 20px; height:16px; background:url(http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.ph...h/4273uaqa.gif) no-repeat top left; }Share on Facebook Stumble This!







    The chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee in 2001 told investigators Monday that elements of the Bush Administration were pushing for regime change in Iraq in early 2001, months before the 9/11 attacks and two years before President George W. Bush formally announced the Iraq war.
    Sir Peter Ricketts, now-Secretary at the Foreign Office, said that US and British officials believed at the time that measures against Iraq were failing: "sanctions, an incentive to lift sanctions if Saddam allowed the United Weapons inspectors to return, and the 'no fly' zones over the north and south of the country."
    Ricketts also said that US officials had raised the prospect of regime change in Iraq, asserting that the British weren't supportive of the idea at the time.
    "We were conscious that there were other voices in Washington, some of whom were talking about regime change," Ricketts said.
    The head of the British Foreign Office's Middle East department, Sir William Patey, told the inquiry that his office was aware of regime change talk from some parts of the Bush Administration shortly after they took office in 2001.
    Story continues below...
    "In February 2001 we were aware of these drum beats from Washington and internally we discussed it," Patey said. "Our policy was to stay away from that."
    "We didn't think Saddam was a good thing, and it would be great if he went, but we didn't have an explicit policy for trying to get rid of him," he added.
    A third official, who was policy director for the British Defense Ministry at the time, said the discussions between the US and Britain "weren't serious."
    "The question of regime overthrow was, I recall, mentioned but it was quite clear that there was no proposition being put in our direction on that," he quipped.
    News of the British officials comments were first reported Tuesday in the UK Independent.
    Interestingly, the head of Britain's Intelligence Committee told investigators that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to be in charge of US policy on Iraq until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
    "Up till then we felt that dealing with the State Department, we were dealing with the people who were forming the policy," Ricketts said.
    British investigators are probing how Britain got into the Iraq war and if officials misled the public. Already, a leaked report has shown that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair covered up British military plans for a full Iraq invasion throughout 2002, claiming at the time that Britain's objective was "disarmament, not regime change."
    According to Britain's Sunday Telegraph, the leaked report condemns the almost complete absence of contingency planning as a potential breach of Geneva Convention obligations to safeguard civilians. Coalition forces were “ill-prepared and equipped to deal with the problems in the first 100 days” of the occupation.
    Blair's lies to Parliament and the public, widespread problems with the Army's supply chain and radio systems, and poor planning for "once Baghdad had fallen" are now confirmed in the public eye.
    Particularly egregious are statements Blair made to Parliament in the build up to the invasion. On Sept 24, 2002, Mr. Blair told members of the British Parliament, “In respect of any military options, we are not at the stage of deciding those options but, of course, it is important — should we get to that point — that we have the fullest possible discussion of those options.”
    McCain to Obama. "If you don't like our bill, send troops to help us."

    Obama, himself attempted to filibuster Justice Alito, who now sits on the Supreme Court.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tom prendergast View Post
    The main problem is that Bush was discussing regime change even before he became President and he was looking for a reason to invade Iraq.
    Very interesting article....

    to be accurate...regime change was the official policy of the US during the Clinton administration......so the article US discussed Iraq regime change a month after Bush took office (2001)....By John Byrne
    is quite misleading to begin with.....regime change was already official US policy.....


    Spinning history might work for some pinheads, but the facts will not change .....
    Last edited by NOVA; 11-26-2009 at 06:59 PM.
    Put blame where it belongs
    ATF decided it could not regulate bump stocks during the Obama administration.
    It that time," the NRA wrote in a statement. "The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations."
    The ATF and Obama admin. ignored the NRA recommendations.


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    Quote Originally Posted by tom prendergast View Post
    I am not sure if the Chilcot Inquiry, which has just opened in London, has had much coverage in the US thus far. I suspect this will change soon enough.

    Blair lied and lied again: Mandarins reveal that 10 days before Iraq invasion PM knew Saddam couldn't use WMDs



    By Tim Shipman
    Last updated at 10:57 AM on 26th November 2009





    No chemical weapons: Tony Blair speaks to British soldiers



    The full extent of how Tony Blair misled the public about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction before and after the Iraq War was laid bare yesterday.
    The Chilcot Inquiry heard that just ten days before the invasion of Iraq Mr Blair was told Saddam had no way of using weapons of mass destruction.
    And weapons experts revealed that the former Prime Minister took Britain to war based on intelligence that his own spies rated just 'four out of ten' for accuracy.
    On the eve of the conflict, intelligence chiefs told Mr Blair that the Iraqi dictator had no warheads capable of delivering chemical weapons, dramatically undermining the Prime Minister's case for war.

    Yet Mr Blair gave the go-ahead for the invasion despite strong evidence that Iraq was no threat to Britain.
    Then, after the war, officials had to tell Mr Blair not to 'declare success too rapidly' in the quest to find WMD in Iraq as he continued to make misleading statements claiming that 'massive evidence' had been found.

    The revelations reinforce the case that intelligence evidence that Saddam was no threat was ignored by Mr Blair to take Britain to war on a false prospectus.
    Sir William Ehrman, former Director General of Defence and Intelligence at the Foreign Office, said that on March 10, 2003 - ten days before the start of the war -
    British spies reported that Iraq had 'disassembled' what chemical weapons it had.

    He said: 'On March 10 we got a report saying that the chemical weapons might have remained disassembled and that Saddam hadn't yet ordered their re-assembly and he might lack warheads capable of effective dispersal of agents.'

    The evidence was summarised in a Joint Intelligence Committee report circulated in Whitehall on March 19.
    Sir William blamed 'contradictory intelligence' for the failure to put the brakes on.

    So..Saddam disassembled Chem Weapons....DID HE OR DIDN'T HE...he "might have" ???
    seems the intell was ambiguous at best....flimsy evidence for calling a man a liar....





    Blood on your hands: A protester dressed as Tony Blair outside the inquiry into the Iraq war

    But Tim Dowse, Foreign Office head of counter-proliferation between 2000 and 2002, also revealed that a month earlier, in February 2003, UN weapons inspector Hans Blix had made clear that he did not believe the mythical weapons existed.



    'He raised it at a meeting with ministers,' Mr Dowse said.


    More...




    The most damning testimony concerned Downing Street's decision to write the now infamous dossier in September 2002 to make the case for war.

    Both WMD experts made clear that 'huge gaps' in intelligence on Iraq were flagged up to ministers, leaving them with no excuse when the caveats were removed from the final dossier.

    Sir William said experts concluded that there never was 'an imminent threat' from Iraq, describing it only as a 'clear and present threat'.

    'an imminent threat' from Iraq,OR a 'clear and present threat'. ?

    The US suspected Muslim fanatics were a threat to the country before 9/11
    certainly a clear and present danger according to Bill Clinton....
    So was it wise for the US to not treat the threat as an "imminent" danger..?
    In hindsight, it obviously was not the right attitude to take....

    If the UK were hit with chem or bio weapons, would this distinction of "imminent threat" or "clear and present threat" make any damn difference ?








    Risk: Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il were of greater concern than Iraq
    He explained that intelligence knowledge of Saddam's weapons programmes was 'patchy' in May 2001, 'sporadic and patchy' in March 2002, and revealed that an August 2002 briefing note for ministers admitted 'we know very little' about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons work since 1998, when weapons inspectors were ejected.

    Both witnesses said that in the years before the war Iraq was not even seen as the main threat.
    Sir William said: 'In terms of nuclear and missiles, I think Iran, North Korea and Libya were probably of greater concern than Iraq.' Mr Dowse added: 'It wasn't top of the list.'




    Saddam Hussein had only 'sketchy' links to Al Qaeda


    The Government also tried to justify the war in Iraq because WMDs could fall into the hands of terrorists. But Mr Dowse said that Saddam had only 'sketchy' links to Al Qaeda, had 'stepped further back' after the 9/11 attacks and had never passed WMD to terrorists.

    By September 2002, as the dossier was being written, Sir William said the intelligence about Saddam's WMD 'remained limited'.
    He added: 'The biggest gap in all of that, and one which ministers were extremely well aware of and used extensively, was the lack of interviews with scientists.'
    Yet in his foreword to the dodgy dossier, Mr Blair claimed 'beyond doubt that Saddam has continued to produce biological weapons'.

    That claim was condemned by the Butler Report into the intelligence in 2004 as 'not a statement it was possible to make' because 'intelligence does not have that degree of certainty'.
    Mr Dowse, who worked on the dossier, made clear he had not seen Mr Blair's foreword before publication and took aim at the former Prime Minister, saying: 'With hindsight the Butler committee made a fair comment.'
    Sir William admitted that weapons inspectors said that six out of ten intelligence reports proved inaccurate. 'Four out of ten as a strike rate is pretty good,' he said.

    But historian Sir Lawrence Freedman, for the inquiry, interrupted: 'Not when you are going to war.'
    Mr Dowse later cast serious doubt on the accuracy of Mr Blair's claims after the war, when the Iraq Study Group (ISG) was in the process of exposing that there was no WMD in Iraq.




    Day one: Chairman John Chilcot (3rd L) speaks during the Iraq Inquiry in central London


    In December 2003, nine months after the invasion, Mr Blair was still insisting: 'The ISG has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories.'
    Mr Dowse said: 'I did not advise him to use those words', and admitted that officials had told ministers not to 'declare success too rapidly'.
    He said: 'My concern was that we should not announce things until we were absolutely certain of our ground because it would have been a disaster, frankly, in PR terms.'
    Last night LibDem foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: 'This new evidence shows that the intelligence was, if anything, pointing towards Iraq becoming less of a threat.
    'A leader of courage and conviction would have used such evidence to halt the drumbeat for war, but Blair just turned a blind eye to intelligence that contradicted his case.'

    And 45-minute warning was misleading too...

    Tony Blair's claim that Saddam Hussein could hit British targets in just 45 minutes was misleading, the Iraq Inquiry heard.
    The claim was the centrepiece of the so-called dodgy dossier published by Downing Street in September 2002 to justify the case for war.
    But Tim Dowse, Foreign Office head of counter proliferation when the dossier was being drawn up, said that it only ever referred to short-range battlefield rockets, not long-range missiles.
    That crucial distinction was omitted from the dossier and encouraged the drift to war.




    How 'threat' was reported

    Mr Dowse said: 'When I saw the report I didn't give it any particular significance because it didn't seem out of line with what we generally assessed to be Iraq's capability in terms of weapons.
    'I assumed it was referring to multibarrelled rocket launchers that could be rapidly deployed in a battlefield. It subsequently took on a rather iconic status that I didn't think those of us who saw the initial report gave it.'
    Asked about suggestions that the 45-minute claim referred to WMDs which could be used by Iraq to strike another nation, Mr Dowse said: 'I don't think we ever said that it was for use in a ballistic missile in that way.'
    Inquiry panel member Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman pointed out: 'But you didn't say it wasn't.'
    But Mr Dowse admitted that he had pushed for the inclusion of a paragraph on how some Iraqi missiles could hit British bases in Cyprus.
    That became conflated with the 45 minute claim at the time, leaving many members of the public with the impression that weapons of mass destruction could be deployed on longrange missiles to hit British targets.
    The dossier eventually read that Saddam's 'military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them. I am quite clear that Saddam will go to extreme lengths, indeed has already done so, to hide these weapons and avoid giving them up'.
    In his foreword, Mr Blair wrote: '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, and that he has been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme.'





    Explore more:



    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0Y0Jj8gN3
    Without nit-picking the entire article, I find it distasteful to call a man a liar with 20-20 hindsight because he was not correct in weighing the intell he had to work with and was privy to at an earlier time....I'll leave that to the left wing hacks,....the blame game,,, its what they do best
    Last edited by NOVA; 11-26-2009 at 07:33 PM.
    Put blame where it belongs
    ATF decided it could not regulate bump stocks during the Obama administration.
    It that time," the NRA wrote in a statement. "The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations."
    The ATF and Obama admin. ignored the NRA recommendations.


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    Excellent article. I hope to follow this as it unfolds.

    There were two articles in my paper this week.

    U.K. Documents Show Friction With U.S. on Iraq

    British open unquiry on Iraq

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