How one man defied logic and intelligence to take us to war

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=443171

All around him people have lost their heads. Cook went, Short followed. Campbell has gone, Hoon should be next. Now the latest revelations about the September dossier on Iraq's WMD have put Tony Blair in the frame. But still he clings on to his increasingly shaky version of history. Andy McSmith reports
14 September 2003

One year ago this month, the nation was treated to a publishing event, the political equivalent to the launch of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, with the difference that a book by JK Rowling is never meant to be anything but a fantasy for people with innocent minds, whereas Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction - The Assessment of the British Government, published on 24 September 2002, was intended to be a serious work with a serious purpose, and most readers began from the assumption that it was all true.

Its seriousness was underlined by the multi-million-pound operation behind it. Its compilation required months of meetings involving intelligence officers, civil servants, political advisers, ministers and, ultimately, Tony Blair. As the final draft was under way, MPs were recalled at 10 days' notice for a special sitting of Parliament.

On the day before publication, advance copies went out under strict security to British embassies across the world, where diplomats were encouraged to take the dossier and show it to their host governments - particularly if they were based in countries that had a seat on the United Nations Security Council. An officer from Special Branch hand-delivered an advance copy to the Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith.

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