Date:   11/14/2007 4:01:29 AM ( 17 y ago)
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URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1042255

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been there, for as long as i've known the press in the UK plus public opinion have been against the war in Iraq. since 9/11 there was obvious concern and retaliation was definitely on the cards.
the press here was caught up with the fear of further attacks plus 'reports' about "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" emanating from Iraq. a leading weapons inspector who committed suicide last month over an intelligence flap remained convinced that Iraq had continued developing a biological-weapons program until the regime was toppled by US-led coalition forces,
The weapons expert, also believed that Iraqi scientists possessed the know-how and materials to construct a radiological weapon known as a “dirty bomb.” The death of David Kelly, who slit his wrist last month after he was exposed as the source for a British Broadcasting Corp. report on British intelligence on Iraq, has been used by critics of Prime Minister Tony Blair to support their claim that he misled the British public. Meanwhile, a top aide to Mr Blair apologized Tuesday for comparing the dead Iraq weapons inspector to Walter Mitty, a fictional fantasizer.

The suicide of the scientist days after he appeared in front of a parliamentary panel investigating whether the case for war in Iraq was exaggerated has turned into a test of the Blair government’s credibility. Mr Blair’s official spokesman, Tom Kelly, apologized for linking the scientist, a respected government weapons inspector who made dozens of trips to Iraq, to the fictional daydreamer, the creation of American author James Thurber. In two interviews with BBC reporters, the scientist was reported to have expressed doubt on Mr Blair’s claim that Iraq could have launched non-conventional warheads within 45 minutes of any order to do so.

It is now emerging that Mr Kelly was firmly convinced that Saddam Hussein’s regime did present a serious threat. The scientist died only two days before he was due to fly to Iraq to join the secretive Iraqi Survey Group, which is seeking to amass evidence for the coalition leaders’ assertion that Iraq had biological-, chemical- or nuclear-weapons programs.

”I spoke to him by phone on his return from Iraq and four days before his death,” said Terry Taylor, a former British colonel who was a chief nuclear inspector in Iraq and worked closely for years with Mr Kelly, who led the biological team. ”I didn’t detect any change in his view on the Iraqi biological program,” Mr Taylor said in an interview. “He and I both believed they had a hidden program, and I detected no change is his fundamental view.”

Mr Taylor, who now heads the Washington office of the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies, was speaking after attending a high-powered conference of international warfare specialists at Saclay, near Paris. —Courtesy TWT

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Smoking Gun Memo?
Iraq Bombshell Goes Mostly Unreported in US Media

5/10/05

NOTE: Please see the Action Alert related to this Advisory.

Journalists typically condemn attempts to force their colleagues to disclose anonymous sources, saying that subpoenaing reporters will discourage efforts to expose government wrongdoing. But such warnings seem like mere self-congratulation when clear evidence of wrongdoing emerges, with no anonymous sources required-- and major news outlets virtually ignore it.

A leaked document that appeared in a British newspaper offered clear new evidence that U.S. intelligence was shaped to support the drive for war. Though the information rocked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's re-election campaign when it was revealed, it has received little attention in the U.S. press.

The document, first revealed by the London Times (5/1/05), was the minutes of a July 23, 2002 meeting in Blair's office with the prime minister's close adviser's. The meeting was held to discuss Bush administration policy on Iraq, and the likelihood that Britain would support a U.S. invasion of Iraq. "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided," the minutes state.

The minutes also recount a visit to Washington by Richard Dearlove, the head of the British intelligence service MI6: "There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of Terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

That last sentence is striking, to say the least, suggesting that the policy of invading Iraq was determining what the Bush administration was presenting as "facts" derived from intelligence. But it has provoked little media follow-up in the United States. The most widely circulated story in the mainstream press came from the Knight Ridder wire service (5/6/05), which quoted an anonymous U.S. official saying the memo was "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" during Dearlove's meetings in Washington.

Few other outlets have pursued the leaked memo's key charge that the "facts were being fixed around the policy." The New York Times (5/2/05) offered a passing mention, and the Charleston (W.V.) Gazette (5/5/05) wrote an editorial about the memo and the Iraq War. A columnist for the Cox News Service (5/8/05) also mentioned the memo, as did Molly Ivins (WorkingForChange.com, 5/10/05). Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler (5/8/05) noted that Post readers had complained about the lack of reporting on the memo, but offered no explanation for why the paper virtually ignored the story.

In a brief segment on hot topics in the blogosphere (5/6/05), CNN correspondent Jackie Schechner reported that the memo was receiving attention on various websites, where bloggers were "wondering why it's not getting more coverage in the U.S. media." But acknowledging the lack of coverage hasn't prompted much CNN coverage; the network mentioned the memo in two earlier stories regarding its impact on Blair's political campaign (5/1/05, 5/2/05), and on May 7, a short CNN item reported that 90 Congressional Democrats sent a letter to the White House about the memo-- but neglected to mention the possible manipulation of intelligence that was mentioned in the memo and the Democrats' letter.

Salon columnist Joe Conason posed this question about the story:


"Are Americans so jaded about the deceptions perpetrated by our own government to lead us into war in Iraq that we are no longer interested in fresh and damning evidence of those lies? Or are the editors and producers who oversee the American news industry simply too timid to report that proof on the evening broadcasts and front pages?"


As far as the media are concerned, the answer to Conason's second question would seem to be yes. A May 8 New York Times news article asserted that "critics who accused the Bush administration of improperly using political influence to shape intelligence assessments have, for the most part, failed to make the charge stick." It's hard for charges to stick when major media are determined to ignore the evidence behind them.

Iraq: pre-war warnings disregarded


Richard Norton Taylor


British intelligence’s warnings were swept aside by an obsessed White House
In the run-up to war, senior British security and intelligence officials as well as diplomats made it clear that they were strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq — though not clear enough. Why now, why Iraq, they asked; it would merely increase the terrorist threat, as the joint intelligence committee warned Ministers less than a month before British troops and bombers joined the U.S. attack on the country.

Now comes fresh evidence that senior British officials tried to persuade the Bush administration to keep off Iraq and concentrate on Afghanistan, the real source of terrorist violence inspired by Al-Qaeda. On the Brink, the newly published memoirs of Tyler Drumheller — the CIA’s chief of clandestine operations in Europe until 2005 — tells of a meeting on September 12, 2001. The day after Al-Qaeda’s attacks on America, George Tenet, then CIA director, met three British guests — Sir David Manning, then Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser; Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6 (British intelligence); and Eliza Manningham-Buller, then head of MI5 (U.K. security service). “I hope we can all agree that we should concentrate on Afghanistan and not be tempted to launch any attacks on Iraq,” Mr. Drumheller quotes the leader of the British delegation as telling Mr. Tenet.

A few days later, a group of diplomats and MI6 officers met their American counterparts at a lunch at the British embassy in Washington. Again MI6 expressed concern that the Bush administration had Iraq in its sights. A senior official (Mr. Drumheller, obeying instructions, does not identify the official or his nationality) went further, inquiring what the CIA was going to do once the U.S. had “hit the mercury with the hammer in Afghanistan and the Al-Qaeda cadre has spread all over the world.” The official asked: “Aren’t you concerned about the potential destabilising effect on Middle Eastern countries?”

Questioned last week about just how far MI6 and other British officials tried to apply pressure on the Americans, Mr. Drumheller told the London-based Guardian newspaper: “I think the British did everything they could to keep the U.S. focused on Afghanistan. They understood Iraq much better than we did.” One of the things they understood was that there was no link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

(The writer is security affairs editor of the London-based Guardian newspaper)

so "been there.." i don't know of any newspaper that supported the war in Iraq then or even now. it is a crime against humanity and now we have to basically withdraw from Iraq giving the impression that Iraq will be able to police itself knowing full well that there will be a civil war with greater bloodshed than we ever envisaged.
i must say "been there.." that watching both 9/11 and the first bombing of Iraq sent shivers through me. then i see each time that Bush and Blair walk to their podium like the 'new world order' made me feel sick to the stomach. their sick smiles of death moulded on their face, they both should be held to account for there crimes to humanity.



 

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