Michael Evans
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LONDON The former head of MI6, who was responsible for providing the intelligence that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, admitted that “too much weight” was given to the secret material that his service supplied.
Sir Richard Dearlove, who retired as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service more than three years ago, said he did not believe that such a situation would occur again, although there were parallels now with America’s warnings over Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Sir Richard was speaking after giving a lecture at the London School of Economics.
Faced by a barrage of questions from the audience about MI6’s role in convincing the Government that Iraq had secret weapons of mass destruction, Sir Richard said: “The intelligence that was released was believed to be correct when it was released.” He added: “There were no human (intelligence) resources in Iraq who could have told us authoritatively that there were no weapons of mass destruction.”
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I was there last night, and the audience was laughing at the chap. On the issue of "no human intelligence", MI6 must not read; Imad Khadduri wrote "Iran's Nuclear Mirage". Given that Khadduri was a top scientist in the nuclear programme, he may just have had weight.
Others in the audience asked why MI6 ignores the facts about Mossad agents in NY on 9/11 dancing for joy and caught with traces of explosives in their vans. Dearlove was booed out of the room at the end of the evening, which was embarrassingly caught on video by We Are Change. Lots of this is NOT reported by the press.
My question to him was about press complicity with intel agencies. As with most questions, he wriggled out.
He was called a traitor to his face in the reception that followed, some stating he sold the UK to the US.
Kenyon Gibson, London,
On top of the deliberate distortions and lies from the politicians this is an unsurprising, but sorry story of officialdom treating the public as though they had no intelligence - when really it was them.
Neil, Gloucestershire, England
Err does the name David Kelly ring a bell?
geoffk, Bournemouth, UK
What about Hans Blix and the UN inspection teams that were run out before the invasion. The people that were hired to do the inspections, couldn't find anything. But the Cronies in Washington new better, HUH!
On another note, Why are countries around the world not stepping up on the issue of the United States trying to define torture and other things that were agreed upon in the Geneva Conventions. These were multilateral agreements, and should be defined by the original signing members. I don't know of many smart people that would sign into an agreement, to have the terms redefined by a signatory at a later date for their convienence. Is the whole world crazy or what?
Gerard, Valdosta,