Iraq War Inquiry

Lest anyone forget, even though these are being held in Britain, that the cheney/bush administration, especially rummy, were telling the Inspectors they knew Exactly where the Chem and Bio weapons were located but as the Inspectors kept calling for those locations the administration kept saying they couldn't release that information to them as it would Compromise Intelligence Gathering, and we all remember Powell at the UN, talk about intelligence?!!!!

Iraq war inquiry hears intelligence on Saddam 'patchy' in run-up to conflict

The department's officials told how ministers heard that knowledge of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes was "sporadic" in the years up to the invasion of 19-20 March 2003. In September 2002 the intelligence "remained limited", they heard. Yet Blair that month described Saddam's banned weapons programme as "active, detailed and growing" and said the picture emerging was "detailed and authoritative"...>>>>>

Nick Clegg: crying wolf in 2003 destroyed all trust in Britain's leaders

The opening of the inquiry into the Iraq war reminded me that one of the greatest tragedies of Labour’s foreign policy is that they focused on Iraq, not Afghanistan. They focused on winning the argument for an unjustified war, instead of winning a justified war....>>>>>

One point, raised the last two days and heard again at the end of the video report, is the talk of regime change in Iraq prior to 9/11 having ramped up and going from the U.S. State Department and sanctions to the Pentagon and regime change, directly after that tragic day. I'm getting the picture, already had but clearer now, the Administration wasn't concerned at all with al Qaeda and bin Laden, thus 9/11, they wanted Saddam gone, reason the Ghost Enemy has grown, al Qaeda, and bin Laden and the so called top leaders of are still out there!

Iraq wasn't the biggest threat, war inquiry hears

The Iraq war inquiry in London has heard that Britain's international security chiefs considered Iraq was not as big a threat as three other rogue states.

The Chilcot inquiry has now heard two days of evidence from the most senior Foreign Office officials who received and analyzed intelligence on Iraq for two years before the war and in the year after the invasion.

It has emerged that Britain's Foreign Office also told former prime minister Tony Blair that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction had been dismantled, 10 days before Britain invaded Iraq.

Overnight, the head of international security in that office, Sir William Ehrman, told the inquiry that Britain had never found any evidence to substantiate claims coming from the White House that Saddam Hussein had a link to Al Qaeda.

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"After 9/11 we concluded that the Iraqis had actually stepped further back, that they didn't want to be associated with Al Qaeda," he said.

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Not only were there no nuclear or chemical weapons considered dangerous, but the UK's intelligence community ranked Iraq fourth on a list of states posing the greatest risk to Britain's national security.

Iran, North Korea and Libya were all thought to be bigger threats...>>>>>

Iran has only grown in that region, North Korea has only continued to advance as well, especially in long range rocket development, but Libya a more dangerous threat then Iraq, and now the United States and Libya are good friends according to the cheney/bush administration, Hmmmmm!!

British Officials: Little Pre-War Evidence of al-Qaida-Iraq Link

Two senior British officials say there was no evidence of serious cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida after the 2003 Iraq invasion, and only sporadic contacts in years before

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Dowes told panel members there was little new intelligence on Iraq or its capacity for weapons of mass destruction since the late 1990s. He said analysts determined those early contacts did not look like collusion, and said he believed U.S. operatives shared that assessment.

Ehrman said there was scattered evidence that Iraq may have possessed disassembled components of chemical-biological weaponry. But he described that data as inconclusive and said analysts generally doubted Baghdad had the technology to deliver such payloads...>>>>>

Britain knew Iraq destroyed weapons but proceeded to invade, inquiry told

SECRET INTELLIGENCE was received by Britain in the days before the Iraq invasion was launched in 2003, indicating Saddam Hussein had destroyed chemical weapons of mass destruction, the Iraq inquiry was told yesterday.

Sir William Ehrman, a senior foreign office figure, said: “We were getting, in the very final days before military action, some intelligence on chemical and biological weapons – that it was dismantled and that Iraq might not have the munitions to deliver it.”...>>>>>

Iraq inquiry focusing on Bush-Blair relationship

Many UK politicians criticised Tony Blair's closeness to George Bush

Tony Blair "sealed his reputation" in America by his support for the US after 9/11, the UK's former ambassador to the US has told the Iraq war inquiry.

Sir Christopher Meyer said Mr Blair and President George Bush "got on" from the moment they met in 2001 and that their relationship "warmed" after that...>>>>>

Iraq Inquiry Digest Everything about the Chilcot Inquiry in one place

Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war Follow the action as inquiry into one of the most contentious decisions of modern times begins hearing evidence