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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: WMD claims were lies says former envoy WMD claims were lies says former envoy By Sam Marsden, Press Association Monday, 12 July 2010 mmes posed a "substantial threat" before launching the 2003 invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein, the inquiry into the war heard today. Former UK diplomat Carne Ross claimed that the Government "intentionally and substantially" exaggerated its assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in public documents. Related articles * More UK News * Search the news archive for more stories Mr Ross, who was First Secretary responsible for the Middle East at the UK's mission to the United Nations from 1997 to 2002, alleged that nuanced intelligence was "massaged" into "more robust and terrifying" statements about Saddam's supposed WMD. He said in a statement to the inquiry: "It remains my view that the internal Government assessment of Iraq's capabilities was intentionally and substantially exaggerated in public Government documents during 2002 and 2003. "Throughout my posting in New York, it was the UK and US assessment that while there were many unanswered questions about Iraq's WMD stocks and capabilities, we did not believe that these amounted to a substantial threat. "At no point did we have any firm evidence, from intelligence sources or otherwise, of significant weapons holdings. "Most of the unanswered questions derived from discrepancies in Iraq's accounting for its past stocks and the destruction of these stocks." Mr Ross said he found no mention of an increase in the UK's assessment of the threat posed by Iraq in policy documents before the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. He said the presentation of intelligence changed after the atrocities, in particular in the British Government's September 2002 dossier on Saddam's weapons programmes. This document contained the notorious claim that Iraq could launch WMD within 45 minutes. Mr Ross told the inquiry: "In these public documents, of which there were several, the nuanced judgments contained in the internal JIC (joint intelligence committee) assessments, for instance, were massaged into more robust and frightening statements about Iraq's WMD capability." He said there was "no basis in firm intelligence" for the 45-minute claim. The former diplomat added in his statement: "This process of exaggeration was gradual, and proceeded by accretion and editing from document to document, in a way that allowed those participating to convince themselves that they were not engaged in blatant dishonesty. "But this process led to highly misleading statements about the UK assessment of the Iraqi threat that were, in their totality, lies." Mr Ross also gave evidence to the earlier Butler Inquiry into intelligence mistakes in the run-up to the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. In his submission to the Butler hearings he said: "We would frequently argue, when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos." He told the Iraq Inquiry today that this was "the universal HMG (Her Majesty's Government) agreed line". He added: "When the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) said that to (the US Department of) State, they were speaking for the whole Government." Mr Ross argued that co-ordinated action to prevent banned exports from Iraq, and to target Saddam's illegal revenues, could have offered a real alternative to military action. He told the inquiry it was a "disgrace" that Britain did not exhaust all peaceful options before going to war against Iraq. "There was no deliberate discussion of available alternatives to military action in advance of the 2003 invasion," he said. "There is no record of that discussion, no official has referred to it, no minister has talked about it, and that seems to me to be a very egregious absence in this history - that at some point a Government before going to war should stop and ask itself, 'are there available alternatives?"' The former diplomat also claimed that the US and the UK "engineered" the appointment of Hans Blix as the United Nations' chief weapons inspector in Iraq.
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
Governments run by Jews lie, nothing new about that.
God is always good!
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