Dossier 'over-egged' Iraq weapons claims

[Briar]

(This is evidence from weapons experts in the MoD. Don't get your hopes up - Hutton is inclined to take the official line that Scarlett and the JIC were better judges than these people with scientific knowledge about and long term experience of WMD)


Dossier 'over-egged' Iraq weapons claims

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3077830.stm

...
Brian Jones, who managed scientists working at the Defence Intelligence Staff, told the inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly he feared assessments of the Iraqi threat were being "over-egged" as the dossier was compiled.

....


In an e-mail to Dr Kelly the day after the dossier was published, Mr A <unnamed official who gave evidence by videophone> raised his doubts about government claims about Iraq's Al-Qa'qa plant, adding: "You will recall ....(a person's name has been blanked out) admitted they were grasping at straws."


He had written too of "our view that you and I should have been more involved in this than the spin merchants of this administration".

Mr A told the inquiry: "The perception was that the dossier had been round the houses several times in order to try to find a form of words which could strengthen certain political objectives."

[emad]

1. First it was 'over'sexed' now it's 'over egged ' -

sounds like a half-baked recipe for disaster whatever way you look at it.
Bottom line: someone fed them a story ("we will crush them like bugs"...)and they swallowed it. Now the whole thing tastes pretty sick because the heat in the kitchen got so bad, they had to send in inpsectors to check it out. Next, the sous-chef dropped dead ("for when he got there, the cupboard was bare"....), just after pointing the finger at the spinning machine. Will it now end as: 'and now, over here'?

[Lindacooks]

2. How many

different phrases can they invent for 'lied'????

[stumblnrose]

3. Can someone please translate for me...

...the difference between "over-egging" and over-sexing"? Since turning to the British media for most of my international news, and I rely more on The Independent than The Guardian, which seems still to be looking for proof of Blair's ultimate exoneration, I have been exposed to words and word usages that leave me oft-times puzzled. So I'm just asking if eggs and sex are the same or is there some subtle difference.

[rjbcar27]

4. Right...

Dr. Kelly allegedly used the phrase 'sexed up' to describe how the dossier was embellished.

At the Hutton enquiry today, a witness suggested that the government had 'over-egged' some of the intelligence in the dossier.

It all boils down to the same thing though.

[T_i_B]

5. Exaggeration in other words

And reading the September dossier it is apparent that the dossier was written with the intention of frightening people. The language in it was clearly designed to make you worry about Saddam's nasty weapons that no longer seem to exist. :eyes: I don't think that they could have written the document in this fashion without exaggerating the threat of Saddam on the basis of what we know now.

As to the article, this bit interests me. Make of this what you will.

"Mr A", an unnamed civil servant in the MoD's counter-proliferation and arms department, gave his evidence via videophone, without revealing his face.

Dr Kelly had invited "Mr A" to a meeting on 19 September check a draft of the dossier for factual errors. Dr Kelly himself had suggested 12-14 changes on technical issues.

The 45-minute claim had been discussed because it was something which "seemed to rather beg more questions than it answered".

In an e-mail to Dr Kelly the day after the dossier was published, Mr A raised his doubts about government claims about Iraq's Al-Qa'qa plant, adding: "You will recall ....(a person's name has been blanked out) admitted they were grasping at straws."

[SoCalDem]

6. Semantics... Semantics... How 'bout just saying .."They LIED"??

It's so much simpler, and says exactly what happened..

Would we accept this kind of nonsense from our kids??

Mom:.. Well, Johnny, how did the car get that big dent in the fender??

Johnny:.."What dent"?? That looks like a shadow, to me...

Mom:..."That's a dent"..

Johnny:.. "No, Mom, it must be a flaw in the paint, that may have caused erosion of the underlying metallic substance"..


etc..etc..