Iraq war: too much weight on intelligence, says ex-MI6 chief

[sabra]

Source: The Guardian

The head of MI6 at the time of the invasion of Iraq said last night that the government placed too much weight on intelligence claims to help persuade opponents in parliament to support the war. Sir Richard Dearlove said Iraq demonstrated the dangers when "policy was built round intelligence and little else or when it was used for the primary justification for government action".

Policy was "over-dependent on intelligence particularly when it was presented to parliament", he said. There was a fear that what he called "other factors" might otherwise "carry the day with political opponents of the war". The episode had "highly undesirable consequences for the intelligence community".

Sir Richard also admitted that claims by neo-con elements in the Bush administration that there were links between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein were not true. "You know as well as I know there was no connection between 9/11 and Iraq," he said.

...

Sir Richard, who retired in 2004 and rarely speaks in public, said "intelligence was expected to carry too much weight" in the formulation of policy. He described the way intelligence was used in the build-up to the war, particularly in the use the government made of its discredited Iraqi weapons dossier, as "sui generis" and "most unlikely to happen again".

However, he warned that governments might feel the need to publish intelligence to buttress support for any action against Iran. In the hypothesis of a pre-emptive attack on Iran, he suggested, there would have to be "proof positive" that "the right targets" were hit.


Read more: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,2202952,00.html

---

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece

The secret Downing Street memo

<snip>

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. 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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

[JohnyCanuck]

1. We are Change UK confronts former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove

See this thread in the DU political videos forum.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x66368