Former MI6 chief says Britain was 'dragged' into Iraq war

By GottaLaff

But... But... but BushCo and the Rushpublics say that the intel from al-l-l-l those other countries was the same as ours, and they all pointed to bad, bad things like imminent threats and WMD. Now Nigel had to go and open his big mouth and ruin everything:

Britain was "dragged into a war in Iraq which was always against out better judgment" the former deputy head of MI6 has claimed, in a remark that will reignite the debate over political interference in the war.

The comments, made by Nigel Inkster, who was deputy director of MI6 at the time, make clear there were reservations over the war at a very senior level within the Secret Intelligence Service.

MI6 was blamed for the failure of intelligence that took Britain to war after helping produce a dossier in which Tony Blair claimed that Iraq was ready to use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

The dossier, said to have been "sexed up" by Downing Street, also mentioned controversial intelligence that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium from Niger.

In a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research, Mr Inkster blamed weakness at the Foreign Office for allowing Britain to get dragged into a war over which officials had serious doubts. [...]

His views on Iraq, expressed for the first time in public, may also explain why he was passed over as the head of MI6 in favour of Sir John Scarlett, who took responsibility for the dossier during the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. [...]

The Butler Report into the intelligence that took Britain to war, concluded that "more weight was placed on the intelligence than it could bear", and that judgements had stretched available intelligence "to the outer limits".

So many investigations, so little time.