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| Iraq |
| Government ordered to release Saddam Hussein dossier |
| 2008-09-05 |
| The government has been ordered to release further details relating to its controversial dossier on Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction, following a ruling by the information commissioner. The ruling follows a three-year battle by journalist Chris Ames to obtain drafts of the dossier, as well as comments made about them by officials and spy chiefs in the run-up to its publication in September 2002. Allegations that the dossier was "sexed up" before publication to make a stronger case for war on Iraq were examined by the Hutton inquiry into the death of government scientist David Kelly in 2003. Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, has rejected the government's argument that publishing comments made about drafts of the dossier could jeopardise national security. He said there was "a strong public interest in a degree of exposure of the circumstances of the dossier's production" in order to throw light on the question of whether intelligence findings were manipulated to present an exaggerated case for military action. The Cabinet Office today said it was considering the commissioner's decision. Ministers have 35 days to decide whether to appeal to the information tribunal. The dossier, which included the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be launched within 45 minutes, led to a furious row between the BBC and the government. Kelly committed suicide after being named as the source of a BBC report alleging that the document was "sexed up". William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "Rather than have items of evidence dragged into the public domain piece by piece, the government should set up a full-scale inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Iraq war. "The sooner we can learn the lessons of the war, the sooner we can apply them. It is imperative to begin an inquiry before memories have faded, emails have been deleted and documents have disappeared." The dossier was released in September 2002, as Tony Blair was starting to make the case for war against Iraq. It was not the same as the so-called "dodgy dossier", a separate report about the activities of the Saddam regime that was criticised because part of it was plagiarised from an academic article available on the internet. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 and why do i expect the MSM to remain silent? |
| Posted by: Abu do you love 2008-09-05 16:06 |