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Iraq
BBC Report: How the search for Iraq's secret weapons fell apart
2023-03-14
In which Shafaq shares the BBC’s most recent reshaping, though why this oft-argued situation matters to them now is beyond me.
[Shafaq News] Twenty years after the invasion of Iraq, controversy still rages over the existence of the "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs) which provided the UK's justification for taking part. New details about the search for WMDs have emerged as part of a BBC series, Shock and War: Iraq 20 years on, based on conversations with dozens of people directly involved.

It has sometimes been alleged that the UK government made up the claims about WMDs. But ministers from that time say they had been assured by their own spies the weapons did exist.
"Crikey." That was the one-word reaction from a senior MI6 officer when told by a colleague in late 2001 that the Americans were serious about war in Iraq.

CIA officers also recall the shock of British counterparts. "I thought they would have a heart attack right there at the table," recalls Luis Rueda, head of the CIA's Iraq Operations Group. "If they weren't gentlemen, they would have reached across the table and slapped me."
Posted by:trailing wife

#3  Sources and methods kept the story from being examined in detail. But a reliable opinion might be formed that most of the assessments and conclusions were based on SIGINT, IMINT, MEASINT and NOT Technical HUMINT. A lot of WMD budget money was sloshing around the senior leadership of Iraq, a lot of it stolen or used in corruption pyramids, and they were telling Saddam and his leaders a hierarchy of lies and half-truths about much of the WMD assets supposedly on-hand. There were Chem rounds with Sarin discovered, and traces of potential biologics, and suspicious movement of convoys into Iran towards the end. But no real WMD capabilities of scale.

After the Church hearings of the 70's, old school professionals were convinced the Agency et al, lost huge levels of actual HUMINT assets and went to the politically safer, less messy but more removed technical means. Just an opinion based on Open Source readings over the years, nothing more.
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2023-03-14 13:21  

#2  What would lead you to believe they're any better than the CIA?

Posted by: Abu Uluque   2023-03-14 12:46  

#1  ...If, after DESERT STORM and the other DESERT operations and the fury that followed 9/11, His Majesty's Secret Service was surprised that an attack on Iraq was coming, then they're as screwed up as the CIA.

Mike
Posted by: MikeKozlowski   2023-03-14 09:46  

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