MI6 and CIA were told before invasion that Iraq had no active WMD

MI6 and CIA were told before invasion that Iraq had no active WMD

www.guardian.co.uk

Fresh evidence is revealed today about how MI6 and the CIA were told through secret channels by Saddam Hussein's foreign minister and his head of intelligence that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction.

Tony Blair told parliament before the war that intelligence showed Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programme was "active", "growing" and "up and running".

A special BBC Panorama programme tonight will reveal how British and US intelligence agencies were informed by top sources months before the invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programme, and that the

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well this news shouldn't be that suprising but anything that helps expose the lies that lead up to the Iraq war is good news in my books.

I know there have been various threads that highlight the lies that lead up to the Iraq war, but this "fresh evidence" (if you want to call it that) certainly makes the clowns who lied to promote this murderous invasion/occupation look even more dimwitted in the public eye and hopefully will cause people to question more of what they are being told before they support wars based on fabricated lies going forward.

It's been over a decade now and these war criminals still have not paid for their crimes. I say it's time for some justice.

www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

We'll never see Bush, Cheney, Blair, Rumsfeld etc in the Hague.

I still remember almost 1 million British people marching on London to say "NO" to war and still we went. Follow the money...

Most people are aware of this but...

What i am expecting in this thread are the defenders of such invasion. That's when the whole debate will begin.

reply to post by Corruption Exposed

Interesting information to add to the stack..but I have a question. Why would they have believed these guys? They were in a position they were about to lose if we invaded (We sacked the WHOLE Government and authority structure and that was a predictable move for us). Aside from the fact, other "high level sources" who the public later learned were fabricating little trolls ...also said they did exist. Also Saddam's henchmen saying it. Who to believe?

I supported the invasion at the time because I believed Bush and TPTB must have more information. There must be plenty in the "Classified" stack the public simply wasn't seeing to make it all logical and right. In discovering over the years since how unfounded that hope and faith had been, I'll be the first to nominate Cheney in particular, but Bush as well, for a seat in a Witness chair and their very own Defendants table. Not international (This is America...not the UN.. Global Courts can stick it) but U.S. accounting for what happened.

^^^ having said that, so someone doesn't claim I'm some shill for Bush or whatever... This just seems opportunistic of the BBC. We invaded Iraq, ostensibly, on the intelligence and data derived by insiders of the Saddam regime...but then we were supposed to call it off because OTHER insiders of the same regime said it wasn't so? Err...

There is fire beneath the smoke for people like the BBC to find..Indeed. I think this is fluff and poor journalism though. Just my opinion.

reply to post by luciddream


The defenders of such an invasion are either extremely misinformed or purposely ignorant to the facts including but not limited to the fabricated "evidence" which was based on lies that lead up to the war.

From what I recall they had to keep changing the reason as for why they inaded and still claimed to have no regrets. Don't quote me on this but I believe Colin Powell is the only one who participated in these lies to actually express regrets over this invasion.

Its sad but you know what, nothing will ever change - People are too comfy.

Until that comfort is taken away and it directly effects most of this comfortable population, nothing will change.

We can hear all these facts about how they lied, but because it happened in the past and the majority of our population wasnt effected, nobody cares. Even though, the people who voted for the war were lied to, and in effect had a direct inpact on millions of lives in the war - Well the majority of them are able to prod along with their daily lives because it aint effected them, they didnt lie - they got lied to These people, all dozens of millions of them should be outside Bush's house or the white house with their pitch forks & nooses insisting that somebody is made accountable for the lives that have been lost.

Comfort makes you switch off to the atrocaties around you, I was going to make a thread about this but I'm # with wording

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Corruption Exposed

 

Interesting information to add to the stack..but I have a question. Why would they have believed these guys? They were in a position they were about to lose if we invaded (We sacked the WHOLE Government and authority structure and that was a predictable move for us). Aside from the fact, other "high level sources" who the public later learned were fabricating little trolls ...also said they did exist. Also Saddam's henchmen saying it. Who to believe?

I supported the invasion at the time because I believed Bush and TPTB must have more information. There must be plenty in the "Classified" stack the public simply wasn't seeing to make it all logical and right. In discovering over the years since how unfounded that hope and faith had been, I'll be the first to nominate Cheney in particular, but Bush as well, for a seat in a Witness chair and their very own Defendants table. Not international (This is America...not the UN.. Global Courts can stick it) but U.S. accounting for what happened.

^^^ having said that, so someone doesn't claim I'm some shill for Bush or whatever... This just seems opportunistic of the BBC. We invaded Iraq, ostensibly, on the intelligence and data derived by insiders of the Saddam regime...but then we were supposed to call it off because OTHER insiders of the same regime said it wasn't so? Err...

There is fire beneath the smoke for people like the BBC to find..Indeed. I think this is fluff and poor journalism though. Just my opinion.

"Why believe these guys?" is a good question. I have an even better question, why believe the guys who refused to relay this important conflicting information to the Western public?

Regardless of the Iraqi sources feeding information, there are various proven cases of "intelligence" that lead up to the war to be known as false or questionable well before the invasion even happened. They would have made up anything to justify this invasion.

It was not just Iraqi officials saying this, Hans Blix and Dr. David Kelly are noteworthy people who questioned the Iraq lies due to logic and common sense, so just because it's possible that the Iraqi sources may have had a motive, it does not mean their statements are automatically lies.

I am sad to hear that you supported this farce of an invasion at the beginning but am happy to hear that you have woken up to the lies your MSM have fed you.

Hopefully going forward you won't fall for it again...as in Iran and Syria for example.

You say "we" invaded Iraq due to the intelligence that was gathered but I disagree. "We" fabricated this "intelligence" to justify the invasion. This was planned out a long time ago. I am confident you have heard about PNAC (Project for a New American Century), if not check it out...it pretty much predicts everything that has happened so far this millenium and appears to be predict what is currently going on and what is being set up to happen.

There's never only one reason to go to war.

Kind of like how the Gulf of Tonking incident was used to get us into Vietnam. The event was meaningless, it was the many underlying reasons that were the real cause. Containment of the Soviet Union, but you can't really sell a war to the general public on that idea...they need something to put a flag on so they can support it.

I imagine its the same thing here. They used WMD's simply to sell it but the real reasons for going there are still unknown. Probably to keep that region destabilized was a big one, getting rid of a dictator is another, i'm sure they had a whole list of reasons.

I didn't agree with the war because of the cost but I do think they should have taken out Saddam...he had served his purpose. Get rid of Executive Order 12333 and we are in business.

to be fair the US etc the US offed Kennedy for the same reasons as Saddam, Gahdaffi, the demovratically elected leader pre shaw in Iran, and the peeps in general just fell for the bla bla bla

the CIA and MI6 had every reason to believe the Iraqi experts:
THATS WHY THEY OFFED David Kelly

I am told through top secret channels that it really doesnt matter.

No matter what we say, they got their war. They will always get what they want.

That is how it is.

We as a common man, or woman do not matter. Never have never will.

reply to post by Corruption Exposed


I blame the Bush administration for selling the U.S. public a bag of lies. I also blame ourselves for not standing up and demanding an end to the war after it was made public there were no WMD's. I'll never forget when Bush downplayed and made a joke about not finding WMD's. The U.S. invaded a sovereign country under false pretenses, killed innocent Iraqis and then he joked about it? Then on top of that, he changed the mission two more times just so the U.S. could continue to occupy Iraq. It was criminal, and Bush and his administration got away with it.

reply to post by liejunkie01


I think people could have reduced the effect and spread of the war.

But sadly people were bloodthirsty, and it took them over 100,000 lives and 2 countries wiped out to realize... "hey wait a minute..."

Well some people.

And to be fair here, if anyone needed to be removed it was Saddam and his regime. He had started a war with Iran, he tried to invade Kuwait, he gassed over 5000 of his own people, he was continuing a policy of torture of political enemies...the list is very long of his crimes.

Whether the stated reason was truthful or not is sort of irrelevant. You have to look at what factors are required before the world community should take action to remove someone in power. I agree with taking him out but I think it should of been done in a completely different manner that didn't put the burden of cost on us.

reply to post by Corruption Exposed

Oh, don't get me wrong, we're on the same side for this at this point. Iraq was wrong, unfounded and generally criminal in my opinion. We, the public, couldn't know it then. Not beyond guess and suspicion many had based on past lies...but there is no excuse for not realizing we were fed a line of crap by now.

My only question here is the BBC's motives and depth on a thing like this. If we want to say 'Why didn't they tell us about these two', then to be fair and objective about this, we need ALL the intelligence reports from sources considered half way reliable for at least a year prior to invasion day. How many said weapons were there...how many said they weren't? That's critical context to a story like this and without it? Cherry picking two intel sources out of what was likely an ocean of flowing intelligence at the time is a little cheap.

^^This is why I've come to dislike Government and MSM alike.... Government screws us then MSM comes in to muddy everything up and throw blame around like it's a carnival game.

Bush made comments after 9/11 but before 2003 ..some quoted in Woordward's book "Hubris", that show Bush fully intended to invade Iraq and remove Saddam LONG before troops went over the border and made it happen. Long before Hans Blix did his best to make things worse..not better. (If he got any more wishy washy about his crap reports, they'd have been good for little more than housebreaking puppies.) Bush's blame in playing out family grudges that started in 1990 are well known at this point..his blame isn't in question for that, in my mind.

The PROBLEM is...when people like the BBC start throwing accusations around like this for exactly HOW and WHY the war happened...they slime far more than Bush. There is a whole chain of people from Intelligence to State to the Pentagon that were involved in collecting and evaluating the intelligence. I'd love hearing about these two sources in LARGER context ...but to focus even passingly on them as some incredible discovery is disingenuous and typical MSM overblow, in my humble opinion.

When the BBC starts digging into what really matters....and that'll put them at risk of more than just crappy ratings...I'll respect them again. Maybe. They jump for the low hanging fruit as a habit though and leave the whole tree as if they hadn't seen it was there.

reply to post by Hopechest


If getting rid of dictators was reason enough to go to war than the USA would have to invade several of their allies such as Saudi Arabia or Bahrain...

You are right though, they need to sell the war the the public as the actual reasons for the wars are not something you want the general public to be aware of.

Luckily people aren't falling for it as easily anymore but regrettably regardless of our awakening that's not stopping the war criminals from continuing their global conquest.

Originally posted by Hopechest
And to be fair here, if anyone needed to be removed it was Saddam and his regime. He had started a war with Iran, he tried to invade Kuwait, he gassed over 5000 of his own people, he was continuing a policy of torture of political enemies...the list is very long of his crimes.

Whether the stated reason was truthful or not is sort of irrelevant. You have to look at what factors are required before the world community should take action to remove someone in power. I agree with taking him out but I think it should of been done in a completely different manner that didn't put the burden of cost on us.

Agreed here too.. Saddam DID need removed. There are still people in Iran suffering from the waves of Chemical Weapons Iraq used on the battlefield during their war.....not to mention the outright slaughter of the Kurds with those same chemical weapons.

How can I be anti-war and still say Saddam needed removed? Well... I'm old school thinking on this. Why send an Army when a special forces team will do? Saddam needed a frontal lobotomy at about 3,000 feet per second ....through and through. The world didn't need a full blown war to remove one man. He even made a point of appearing in public...he made it easy.

I know..they claimed body doubles. I bought that crap too.....but has anyone actually SEEN one of these Body doubles?? All these years after?? Anyone? I haven't. What happened...did Saddam kill them all before the war? Did the US kill them all? Or did they just never exist as an excuse not to assassinate vs. war and invasion? (The same lie was used for why Gadaffi couldn't just be killed to let Libyans sort their own issues... he had "body doubles" so who'd know we got the right one? ...err... Yeah.. those ones seem to have vanished too)

Originally posted by Corruption Exposed
reply to post by Hopechest

 

If getting rid of dictators was reason enough to go to war than the USA would have to invade several of their allies such as Saudi Arabia or Bahrain...

You are right though, they need to sell the war the the public as the actual reasons for the wars are not something you want the general public to be aware of.

Luckily people aren't falling for it as easily anymore but regrettably regardless of our awakening that's not stopping the war criminals from continuing their global conquest.

I never said getting rid of dictators was reason enough to go to war. I didn't agree with going to war to get rid of him.

I was simply saying that there are always multiple reasons when going to war and getting rid of him was more than likely high on the list. However, the US has never, ever been able to sell a war on that premise alone. Its why things like Iran-Contra happen.

reply to post by Hopechest

And to be fair here, if anyone needed to be removed it was Saddam and his regime. He had started a war with Iran

He was backed by the USA and other Western allies during the war with Iran...therefore should we not also remove the administrations who assisted him?

As for his treatment of the Kurds and other groups of Iraqis, I found it to be disgusting, but "we" allowed it to happen so would "we" not share some of the guilt?

When I say "we" I mean the governments who participated in these murderous campaigns.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


We are in total agreement here then. I have absolutely no idea why Bush and his team wanted to go to war. It obviously wasn't for the oil since it still belongs to Iraq. Money of course is always a factor in war but I have a hard time believing they would pull of something this big just to give a few contracts to their buddies.

Looking at Bush's inner circle you can see a number of very egocentric people there. Cheney, Rumsfield....it may be as simple that they wanted to play with their big toys. There are so many different ways to accomplish your goals without a full scale invasion that breaks the banks and costs 100's of thousands of innocent lives.