Iraqi who gave MI6 45-minute claim says it was untrue

[Aidoneus]

Iraqi who gave MI6 45-minute claim says it was untrue
David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday January 27, 2004
The Guardian

The government's dogged insistence that Saddam Hussein was able to deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of the order being given suffered two serious blows yesterday as ministers braced themselves for the findings of the Hutton inquiry.

As the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was once again forced to defend the justification for going to war, the Iraqi exile group in London which claims to have supplied MI6 with the intelligence about Saddam's 45-minute capability admitted that the information might have been completely untrue.

Nick Theros, the Washington representative of Iyad Allawi, who headed the Iraqi National Accord in exile, said it was raw intelligence from a single source, part of a large amount of information passed on by the INA to MI6.

--snip--

Mr Straw admitted that it was "disappointing" that the inspectors had not found evidence of the weapons, but said the war with Iraq was more justified today than it had been when MPs voted for the invasion.

"We were never saying that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United Kingdom... The serious and current threat to the world, and that was absolutely true, and I remain convinced it was," he told the BBC Radio 4 programme Today.

--snip--


He said the Iraqi officer who claims to have been the original source of the intelligence had in fact never seen the purported chemical weapons crates upon which his 45-minute claim was based.

The former INA spy, who calls himself Lieutenant Colonel al-Dabbagh, although this is not his full name, is now said to be "in hiding".

--snip--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1131991,00.html

[TacticalPeek]

1. "now said to be in hiding" - ROFLMAO!

In Shrub's False Witness Protection Program.

[displacedtexan]

2. MI6 wrote down what the guy said, and Blair chose to believe that crap...

with no evidence whatsoever.

Blair had a choice. So did *.

[Gin]

3. This is a major issue for me....but since the news doesn't carry much

about Iraq anymore...I guess it's a non issue. We only lost 500 soldiers...move on.

The war is stage one...if shrub gets back in...look out..we will attack others..the treasury will be depleted...and all the social programs that made this country great, will be so underfunded..they will cease to exist.

I think this is more important than health care and the other issues..it is the basis for the PNAC plan to be expanded.

But what do I know...I am not an Elite.

[librechik]

4. "We never said Iraq was an imminent threat!" again!

can you believe these snakes? NO!