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.

"There was no Cabinet debate in run-up to war."

By GottaLaff

All of these revelations must, absolutely must, lead to a very thorough, very big, major, supercolossal public investigation that will eventually lead to big, major, supercolossal, public prosecutions:

The Government is refusing to release minutes of Cabinet meetings before the Iraq War because they would reveal there was no discussion on the issue.

Details surrounding two crucial meetings on the eve of the conflict were laid bare for the first time yesterday when former Cabinet Minister Clare Short, who was present at both, gave a full account of what happened.

She told The Mail on Sunday the main reason for the ‘scandalous’ decision not to publish the minutes was not to protect confidential discussions about the war, but to cover up the fact there was no such discussion.

Debate-free governing is highly toxic and exceedingly unhelpful prior to a deadly, illegal invasion, don't you agree?

At the last Cabinet meeting, no debate on the legality of the war was allowed and Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, said brusquely: ‘That’s it.’

What could possibly go wrong? I mean, besides killing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people and destroying an entire country without provocation?

The official records would also put an end to claims by Gordon Brown’s supporters that, in private, he had grave doubts about the war, said Ms Short. In fact, he led the Cabinet campaign to accuse France of sabotaging British and American attempts to win United Nations support for the attack on Saddam Hussein.

Ms Short, who resigned as International Development Secretary after the war:

‘The bitter irony is that what they are doing is concealing the fact there was no robust decision-making. The minutes will reveal there was no real Cabinet discussion about the Iraq War. That is the real scandal.’

Ms Short spoke out after the Government blocked an order by the Information Commissioner to reveal minutes of Cabinet meetings on March 13 and March 17, 2003, two days before the war started on March 19. [...]

Ms Short said: ‘When we arrived, there was a piece of paper in front of each of us, a few paragraphs written by the Attorney General saying the war was legal, there were no problems etc.

‘Lord Goldsmith started reading it out but we said, “You don’t have to, we can read it.” Then Tony said something like, “That’s it.” And that was it.

‘I wanted to know if the Attorney General had any doubts about the legality of the war.

‘They all said, “Clare, be quiet, stop.” No one else wanted to talk about it. I was shouted down.’