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| Britain |
| WMD source ’was senior Iraqi officer’ |
| 2003-06-05 |
| EFL A senior Iraqi officer on active service within the country's military provided British intelligence last August with the information that Iraq could fire chemical or biological warheads within 45 minutes of Saddam Hussein giving the order, according to senior Whitehall officials. The claim, contained in the government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, has become the chief test of whether ministers "duped" the British public over the need for war. Whitehall officials in two departments said last night the evidence of the 45-minute capability had come from a serving Iraqi officer with a record for providing reliable data over years. Intelligence sought to find a second source for the information and was unable to do so. However, the JIC was prepared to rely on a single source because the official was a senior figure in Mr Hussein's regime, not a defector. The information was analysed by Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee and immediately distributed to some cabinet ministers at the end of August, a few weeks before the compilation of the government's WMD dossier. Mr Blair remained confident that chemical and biological weapons would be found in Iraq, saying that the Iraq Survey Group - made up of 1,400 UK, US and Australian officials - were only now starting their work. |
| Posted by:JP |
| #9 Anon -- maybe they kept sailing in ever-decreasing circles until they simply winked out of existence? (G!) According to Taiwan News, "Western U.S., British and German intelligence services failed to confirm on Wednesday (presumably 02/19/03) the existence of three mystery ships suspected of carrying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction reported by a British newspaper (the Independent). http://www.etaiwannews.com/World/2003/02/21/1045792101.htm |
| Posted by: JP 2003-06-05 13:29:15 |
| #8 Has anyone heard what happened to the ghost ships? I have been very curious to know what they were all about, but I haven't heard anything since the report before the war that they were sailing in ever-decreasing circles. Inquiring minds want to know... |
| Posted by: Anon 2003-06-05 12:35:49 |
| #7 You think a serving iraqi officer, a "senior figure in Mr. Husseins regime" was simply passing along items fed to him by chalabi??? I doubt that is true. I also doubt the CIA advised that it was true. I think this something very different. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-06-05 11:29:30 |
| #6 The Last Post was from PAUL |
| Posted by: PAUL 2003-06-05 10:51:07 |
| #5 I said "Informants" and Defectors. The serving Iraqi officer would fall under "Informant" I think MJH theory and my Theory have a lot in common. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-06-05 10:50:26 |
| #4 paul - the source mentioned in the post was NOT a defector, but a serving iraqi officer - didnt you read the post?? MJH - very interesting theory - i think you may be on to something. Its possible, even likely, that a combination is true - there WERE some weapons and development programs, (EG the mobile labs) but that folks inside Iraq exagerated them for a variety of reasons, one of which might have been to bring down the regime. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-06-05 09:28:50 |
| #3 Exiled Iraqi Chalabi may have been feeding Western Intelligence Iraqi informants and Defectors with false stories. Chalabi had reasons to want a US invasion for his own political aspirations in a post Saddam Iraq. Bush had reason to want to beleive everything the defectors told him about a WMD program. It's a marriage made in heaven especially when the advice from the CIA is ignored. |
| Posted by: PAUL 2003-06-05 09:25:13 |
| #2 I happen to believe that western intelligence was acting on information they believed to be true. There are several theories about why the WMD have not been found yet: Destroyed before we got there; Saddam thought he had them, but did not; exported to Syria or the "Ghost Ships". I am starting to wonder if perhaps Saddam's intelligence people fed the coalition information they KNEW would cause a military strike, so they could be rid of Saddam once and for all. All of this evidence may have been fabricated, but not necessarily by any western sources. Couldn't it be that governmental sources in Iraq were so desperate to remove Saddam that they caused the invasion by fabricating their own intelligence? |
| Posted by: mjh 2003-06-05 09:04:54 |
| #1 Thanks JP. I thought maybe they were winked to the bottom of the deep blue sea!! :-) |
| Posted by: Anon 2003-06-05 21:47:43 |