And this was the start of the madness...
Dossiers. Some are more dodgy than others.
Spin cycles. Some spin harder than others.
And sometimes, when machines spin too fast, the gears grind and the wheels fall off...
That's when you need to open up the machine, and see what the problem is. Who's been tinkering? What's making the sparks fly? Where are the faulty parts?
The Iraq dossier of 2002 should have failed its M.O.T. If it was a car it would be illegal. It would look very sexy on the outside, revving away, burnished and gleaming and scary, billowing clouds of oily smoke and with the choke pulled out all ready to go! go! kill! kill!
But it should never have been allowed to hit the road.
Have a look at this website, written by journalist Chris Ames of the New Statesman.
IraqDossier.com. ( Thanks to J's lovely step-dad Roger for sending it over. I see Iain has it too.)
Here is Chris Ames' article on the NS article in the Guardian - 'Draft Dodging'
'The gist of my New Statesman piece is that the draft could represent the first appearance of the notorious "45 minutes" claim in the dossier, which would make it the smoking gun to end all smoking guns. It is hard to see the information commissioner sanctioning the continued suppression of such an important document. Of course, had the government supplied it to Hutton, it would be in the public domain already...
[...]
...Nobody imagines for one minute that Blair could have got Parliament to vote for war if he had told it what the JIC was telling him - that Iraq probably had weapons of mass destruction. The doubt was taken out. Scarlett was the fall guy with the bungee rope, and ended up as head of MI6. But it was the spinners wot dunnit. The dossier was sexed up beyond doubt.'
Spin cycles. Some spin harder than others.
And sometimes, when machines spin too fast, the gears grind and the wheels fall off...
That's when you need to open up the machine, and see what the problem is. Who's been tinkering? What's making the sparks fly? Where are the faulty parts?
The Iraq dossier of 2002 should have failed its M.O.T. If it was a car it would be illegal. It would look very sexy on the outside, revving away, burnished and gleaming and scary, billowing clouds of oily smoke and with the choke pulled out all ready to go! go! kill! kill!
But it should never have been allowed to hit the road.
Have a look at this website, written by journalist Chris Ames of the New Statesman.
IraqDossier.com. ( Thanks to J's lovely step-dad Roger for sending it over. I see Iain has it too.)
Here is Chris Ames' article on the NS article in the Guardian - 'Draft Dodging'
'The gist of my New Statesman piece is that the draft could represent the first appearance of the notorious "45 minutes" claim in the dossier, which would make it the smoking gun to end all smoking guns. It is hard to see the information commissioner sanctioning the continued suppression of such an important document. Of course, had the government supplied it to Hutton, it would be in the public domain already...
[...]
...Nobody imagines for one minute that Blair could have got Parliament to vote for war if he had told it what the JIC was telling him - that Iraq probably had weapons of mass destruction. The doubt was taken out. Scarlett was the fall guy with the bungee rope, and ended up as head of MI6. But it was the spinners wot dunnit. The dossier was sexed up beyond doubt.'
Labels: bastard warmongers, Chris Ames, dodgy dossier, Iraq
posted by Rachel at 9:01 pm
Hi Rachel
I blogged it too.
There is another dodgy dossier in circulation. It is the Lord Chancellor's consultation paper on whether convicted prisoners should have the vote.
You may have heard about Greenpeace who recently won a High Court action over the consultation process into nuclear power.
Shouldn't Labour leave writing fiction to the likes of Jeffery Archer?
I like the car analogy.
Such a sorry mess. Sigh.
Puss