The head of Britain's foreign intelligence agency told Prime Minister Tony Blair that the case for war in Iraq was being "fixed" by Washington to suit US policy, a BBC documentary will claim on Sunday.
| Back to form for the BBC, I guess. |
Richard Dearlove, head of MI6, briefed Blair and a group of ministers on the United States' determination to launch the invasion nine months before hostilities began in March 2003, the Sunday Times reported, citing the BBC programme, which is due to be aired later in the day. After attending a briefing in Washington, he told the meeting that war was "inevitable", according to the weekly newspaper. "The facts and intelligence" were being "fixed round the policy" by US President George W. Bushs administration, Dearlove said. The allegations against Blair just weeks before an expected general election are likely to reopen a feud between the government and the British broadcaster.
| That usually happens when one side tells the truth, and the other doesn't ... |
The documentary argues that Blair had signed up to follow Bushs plans for regime change in Iraq as early as April 2002, The Sunday Times said. Robin Cook, Britain's former foreign secretary who resigned as leader of the House of Commons over Iraq, claimed that the threat of weapons of mass destruction was not the prime minister's true reason for going to war. "What was propelling the prime minister was a determination that he would be the closest ally to George Bush and they would prove to the United States administration that Britain was their closest ally," Cook tells the programme.
| Sounds like a good reason. |
| That's always assuming you'd consider Robin Cook as a legitimate source... |
"His problem is that George Bushs motivation was regime change. It was not disarmament. Tony Blair knew perfectly well what he was doing.
| Regime change, another good reason. |
"His problem was that he could not be honest about that with either the British people or Labour MPs, hence the stress on disarmament."
| And whose fault is that? Perhaps if Labour had honored their commitment to 'human rights' when it came to Saddam, the British people would have understood the need for regime change. |
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