Straw withdraws 45 minutes claim

[emad]

BBC News snip

Jack Straw has told MPs "some of the information" on which the UK made its decision to invade Iraq was wrong but he still defended the decision.

The UK foreign secretary also disclosed that the head of MI6 had withdrawn claims Iraq could use WMD within 45 minutes of an order being given.

But Mr Straw insisted that "even with hindsight" the government was right to join the US-led war.

He said there was evidence Iraq was trying to restart weapons programmes.
More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3736086.stm



THIS MAN:

JOHN SCARLETT, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Comittee who claimed "authorship" of the WMD dodgy dossier and who, according to the Sunday Times (10 October), is in line for mega New Year's honor in Blair's Poodle Fixes It list, is a CROOK.

Is he really Scarlett or a senior Cold War KGB officer/Scarlett lookalike who returned to the UK after his Moscow Embassy tour of duty ended in disaster and took over Scarlett's ID?

And is he connected by blood/DNA to this man:

Russian mega oligarch Roman Abramovich, who suddenly pitched up in the UK over a year ago after allegedly making his $$$$$$$$$$$$$s in the Sibneft oil company?...

The whole thing stinks.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. So gracious of MI6 to withdraw their claim

I mean, up until this point, I really still thought that, although it had been proved there were no WMD, Iraq was still able to launch them within 45 minutes. :eyes:

[struggle4progress]

5. How much do the Isles pay for these cutting edge insights from MI6?

[gratuitous]

2. Straw: "Okay, we lied. Happy now?"

"And what are you gutless lot going to do about it, anyway?"

You can almost see him leaning back, shifting a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

[IndianaGreen]

7. Not even Bush and Blair has gone as far as admitting they lied

The American media fumbled the ball for it was the British press that exposed all of the lies about Iraq long before the war began, including Colin Powell's use of a British graduate student thesis written prior to the 1991 Gulf War as "evidence" of WMDs.

Where were the Washington Post and the NY Times then?

[emad]

3. London Evening Standard:

45 minute claim is dumped
By Joe Murphy, Political Editor, Evening Standard
12 October 2004

The infamous 45-minute claim about Saddam Hussein's weapons was finally laid to rest today when MI6 formally dropped the source of the misleading intelligence.

In a special Commons statement, MPs were told the Secret Intelligence Service would no longer use the "line of reporting" that came up with what became the most notorious propaganda of the run-up to the war with Iraq.

In addition, SIS dropped a second supplier of intelligence, described only as a "liaison service", which was responsible for the false claim that Saddam was producing a biological weapons agent.

The announcement comes nearly 18 months after the end of the war and days after the final report of the Iraq Survey Group confirmed that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. In fact, he probably destroyed Iraqi stockpiles around a decade ago. It followed an internal investigation forced by serious criticism of the way MI6 vetted and validated intelligence put into the discredited 2002 dossier on Iraqi weaponry.
More:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/13990575?source=Evening%20Standard

[struggle4progress]

6. "Liaison service"? Is that another word for pimp? eom

[KoKo]

4. They all "stand together." Amazing....because they don't want to hang

alone.

And, in both cases there's no outcry among the citizens...except on the "fringes" as they would have everyone believe.

[PurityOfEssence]

8. Yeah, it takes at least an hour for things that don't exist to get here...

They lied. Nobody came screaming like Chicken Little about Hussein, and that's where the whole premise falls flat on its face: they did everything they could to justify doing something they'd already determined to do. "Everybody" didn't get it wrong; many people knew this was all crap. The very tenuousness and qualification of all the charges stank to high heaven; Junior's SOTUA was literal proof of deception. He had materials with which he could produce up to a shitload of Sarin. What materials? Water? We learned from Britain that they had fake information we'd given them that he might be buying nuclear material that he already had in abundance and couldn't use.

And on and on and on. It's so laughingly transparent that it boggles the imagination.

Truly, the current administration's true intent is to destroy our faculties of reason by getting us to embrace such poppycock. It's working.

[KlatooBNikto]

9. Can we replay Ron Ziegler's words: that statement is no longer

operative.?

[daleo]

10. That was "the straw that stirred the drink"

The 45 minutes claim. In hindsight, Hitler still figured he was right, too. The fact is, deathbed conversions (or any kind of conversions) by war-mongers seem to be very rare. McNamara is the only one I can think of, off hand.

Kerry doesn't count - he was just a low-level combatant during his time in Viet Nam. His turning against the war is a point in his favor as far as I am concerned though.

[saigon68]

11. The "Straw" that broke the Poodle's Back

What a nitwit this rabid curr is. He is very dangerous.

[daleo]

15. I hope the poodle does pay, at least at the polls

It is painful to think that he may get a pass, like Howard did. As you say, they are dangerous, and will probably get right back on the war wagon if they get away with this one.

[0007]

16. The think tanks figured out Saddam Hussein was thinking about

WMD. Don't ya just love it saigon68? ..... and all the fucking sheep bought into it!

[saigon68]

17. Not a lot of Us here

Remember Feb 2003 ----a lot of people here, me included predicted a Cluster-Fuck. I had this feeling all along we were lied to by the AWOL CHIMPANZEE and the rest of the "Bush Criminals"

[displacedtexan]

12. NOW? They want to take it all back now?????

TOOOOOOOOO LAAAAAAAAAATE!

[jayfish]

13. Tell That To Dr. David Kelly You Murdering

fucks. Oh how quickly we forget.

Jay


EDITED FOR EMPHASIS

[Drifter]

14. Does that mean I can take the plastic off my house now ?

Cheers
Drifter

[rman]

18. withdrawn for 2nd time

i don't have a source now, but it had already been stated that the 45 minutes did in fact relate to conventional weapons, not to WMDs.

which means the BBC was right about the govt. having "sexed up" the report, which means the top man of the BBC was made to resign for a false reason.

[leftchick]

19. OMG! Guess Who The "High Level Iraqi Informant" Was?????

None other than this fucker....



Who fed MI6 the "45 minute" bullshit!!! I just heard it on BBC America! What an outrage!