Former MI6 chief says Britain was 'dragged' into Iraq war

[FarCenter]

Britain was "dragged into a war in Iraq which was always against out better judgment" the former deputy head of MI6 has claimed, in a remark that will reignite the debate over political interference in the war. The comments, made by Nigel Inkster, who was deputy director of MI6 at the time, make clear there were reservations over the war at a very senior level within the Secret Intelligence Service.

MI6 was blamed for the failure of intelligence that took Britain to war after helping produce a dossier in which Tony Blair claimed that Iraq was ready to use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. The dossier, said to have been "sexed up" by Downing Street, also mentioned controversial intelligence that Saddam Hussain was seeking uranium from Niger.

In a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research, Mr Inkster blamed weakness at the Foreign Office for allowing Britain to get dragged into a war over which officials had serious doubts.

<snip>

The comments by Mr Inkster come in the week that the six-year British mission to Iraq ended after the death of 179 British servicemen and thousands of Iraqis.

In his speech, he also criticised the current mission to Afghanistan, saying Britain has been attempting to implement an agenda that is "ludicrously at variants with the resources allocated to that task." Professor Paul Collier of Oxford University, who has advised the government on failing states, said there had been a "massive mistake" in Afghanistan where Britain had believed there could be a "magical flip from the middle ages to Scandanavia in one go."

<snip>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5267555/Former-MI6-chief-says-Britain-was-dragged-into-Iraq-war.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. Interesting that M16 is speaking up. I wonder when they're going to fess up

to what they did (or M15 did, or someone did, on behalf of the war profiteers there and here) to David Kelly, who objected to the 45 minute bullshit, got ignored, whistleblew to the BBC after the invasion for reasons unknown (probably something else he found out), and got killed on 7/17/03, three days after the outing of Valerie Plame (7/14/03); his office and computers were searched, and four days after that (on 7/22/03), Robert Novack additionally outed the entire Brewster-Jennings front company and all of its counter-proliferation agents/contacts worldwide, putting all of their lives at risk, as well as putting the world at risk from nuclear and other weapons proliferation.

Why didn't they listen to David Kelly? And why the obvious cover up of that assassination by Lord Hutton, whose bogus investigation and report are only surpassed by the 9/11 Commission crapola that was shoved at us?

Why doesn't M16 tell the whole truth, and not just the self-serving part--that they got "dragged" into a war?

Better yet, how about a posthumous knighthood for David Kelly, who tried to stop it?

:mad:

[malaise]

4. Good questions

Can't wait to find out who killed David Kelly.

[Initech]

2. And yet we're still there.

:mad:

[Spurt]

3. I am disappointed with Britain

I had thought their gov't to be robust enough to have called Blair & Co to account over the false wars.
Alas it appears both sides of the Atlantic are equally corrupt.