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| What have we done? |
May
2004 to Present
November
2003 to April 2004
July 2003 to October 2003
May 2003
to June 2003
March to April 2003
29th June 2003
Ministers knew war papers were forged, says diplomat - US official who identified documents incriminating Iraq as fakes says Britain must have been aware of findings.
28th June 2003
Labour's phoney war - the Government tries to divert attention from the Iraq issue by attacking the BBC. The BBC row has been got up to obscure the ugly truth. Intelligence can't hide the fact we went to war on a false pretext.
18th June 2003
Blair and Bush made secret war pact - senior figures in the intelligence community and across Whitehall briefed the former international development secretary Clare Short that Tony Blair had made a secret agreement last summer with George Bush to invade Iraq in February or March. In damning evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, Ms Short refused to identify the three figures, but she cited their authority for making her claim that Mr Blair had actively deceived the cabinet and the country in persuading them of the need to go to war.
18th June 2003
War decision reflected sidelining of cabinet by clique, says Short - Britain went to war in Iraq without any considered cabinet discussion or serious examination of the military options, Clare Short and Robin Cook revealed to the Commons foreign affairs select committee. Ms Short said after a personal protest to Mr Blair she had been given access to both raw intelligence, JIC reports and direct briefings by the JIC chairman, but claimed no material information was presented to her to suggest that any threat appeared "more immediate and imminent and requiring urgent action". The raw material was like corn flakes, droplets of information, she said.
13th June 2003
War may have killed 10,000 civilians - at least 5,000 civilians may have been killed during the invasion of Iraq, an independent research group has claimed. As more evidence is collated, it says, the figure could reach 10,000.
11th June 2003
One last warning from the man who made an enemy of Bush - UN weapons inspector says Iraqi guilt is still not proven. Mr Blix also expressed concern about the future, expressing "nervousness" at the US administration's belief in pre-emptive strikes. "Obviously it raises the need for solid evidence and quality intelligence," he says, adding that intelligence material was treated in "a lighthearted way" by the US and Britain. Mr Bliz was also unhappy at the smear campaign against him by the Pentagon
11th June 2003
Fears of a closing of ranks and cover up over the inquiry into the Iraq war increase as both Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell refuse to give evidence before a foreign affairs select committee inquiry. It is clear that only a full independent public inquiry will reveal the truth, however, Tony Blair refuses such an enquiry, why?
10th June 2003
CIA had doubts on Iraq link to al-Qaida - the debunking of the Bush administration's pre-war certainties on Iraq gathered pace when it emerged that the CIA knew for months that a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida was highly unlikely.
9th June 2003
Blunkett admits weapons error - David Blunkett yesterday became the most senior minister to admit publicly that Downing Street was wrong to publish the "dodgy dossier" on the military threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
8th June
2003
Comical Tony - 62% of people find Tony Blair's government untrustworthy as no proof of WMD is produced. Mr Blair told us Iraq's chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons were an immediate danger to the outside world and to Saddam Hussein's own people. In parliament last September he cited an intelligence picture "accumulated over the last four years" that Saddam had "active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes . . . and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability". That 45-minute claim now looks increasingly absurd. Meanwhile it has emerged that Downing Street scrapped a dossier on Iraq drawn up by intelligence officials because it failed to establish that Saddam Hussein posed a growing threat.
8th June 2003
Saddam's chemical labs 'made no weapons'.
8th June 2003
Partner in Cherie law firm seeks judicial review of 'illegal' invasion" - one of the co-founders of Cherie Blair's law firm has launched a blistering attack on the legality of the Iraq war. Rabinder Singh QC, a leading international and human rights barrister at Matrix chambers, is calling for a judicial review on the ground that no weapons of mass destruction have been found. In a legal opinion seen by The Observer, Singh argues that the original view of the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, that the war was legal is no longer valid because it was based on the need to disarm Saddam.
8th June 2003
Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs' - Tony Blair faces a fresh crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, as evidence emerges that two vehicles that he has repeatedly claimed to be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production units are nothing of the sort. It is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to Saddam by Britain in 1987.
6th June 2003
Weapons dossier 'sent back six times' - a dossier including the claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes was repeatedly returned to intelligence chiefs for changes, the BBC has learned. Also, a leaked US intelligence report has cast fresh doubt on the coalition claims that Iraq had banned weapons which served as justification for going to war. A secret September 2002 Pentagon intelligence report concluded that there was "no reliable information" that Iraq had biological or chemical weapons". It is believed the report was widely circulated in the Bush administration at a time when senior officials were putting the case for military action.
6th June 2003
Blix criticises allies over Iraq weapons - the United Nations chief weapons inspector has criticised the quality of the intelligence given to him by the United States and Britain about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. Hans Blix told the BBC that his teams followed up US and British leads at suspected sites across Iraq, but found nothing when they got there. He said UN inspectors had been promised the best information available. "I thought - my God, if this is the best intelligence they have and we find nothing, what about the rest?" A team of UN nuclear inspectors will arrive in Iraq on Friday, but the United States will only allow it to carry out a limited inspection at a nuclear storage facility.
5th June 2003
Former US intelligence official says evidence on Iraq's WMD was distorted - "Our office had the responsibility of looking at intelligence from all sources that were available to the US Government and from all agencies," says Greg Thielman who was until September 2002 a top official in charge of non-proliferation and strategic affairs in the US state department's intelligence bureau. "Evidence has been distorted and the public has really been misled on issues that helped inform the decision about war and peace," he told the BBC's Today programme.
4th June 2003
Troops hunting for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction have searched 87 "prime" sites in Iraq - and have found nothing. Tony Blair faces demands to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or risk his future as Premier.
2nd June 2003
Transcripts raise alarm across Nato - transcripts of a private conversation between Jack Straw and Colin Powell expressing serious doubts about the reliability of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme are being circulated in western government circles where there is a growing feeling that officials were deceived into supporting the Iraq war.
2nd June 2003
'Blair's authority is diminished' - everyone except Mr Blair wants a public enquiry, why? "...grounds for war grow shakier by the day. Mr Blair has much to answer for."
2nd June 2003
Powell's doubts over CIA intelligence on Iraq prompted him to set up secret review - specialists removed questionable evidence about weapons from draft of secretary of state's speech to UN. The US secretary of state was so disturbed about questionable American intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that he assembled a secret team to review the information he was given before he made a crucial speech to the UN security council on February 5. Mr Powell's team removed dozens of pages of alleged evidence about Iraq's banned weapons and ties to terrorists from a draft of his speech, US News and World Report says today. At one point, he became so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing to intelligence claims that he declared: "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit," according to the magazine. Presented with a script for his speech, Mr Powell suspected that Washington hawks were "cherry picking", the US magazine Newsweek also reports today. Greg Theilmann, a recently retired state department intelligence analyst directly involved in assessing the Iraqi threat, says that inside the Bush administration "there is a lot of sorrow and anger at the way intelligence was misused".
2nd June 2003
Mr Blair's claims - you decide.
1st June 2003
Lie another day - evidence points to the government ignoring intelligence bosses to "sex up" the case for toppling Saddam Hussein. It portrays a government so desperate to justify war that it was willing to cajole the highest intelligence officials in the land into doing its bidding.
1st June 2003
Former Cabinet Minister Clare Short last night accused Tony Blair of duping the nation over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. She said "I have concluded that the Prime Minister decided to go to war in August sometime and he duped us all along." In her most ferocious attack yet on Mr Blair, she said: "There was political spin put on the intelligence information to create a sense of urgency. "We were misled - I think we were deceived in the way that it was done." She hit out at the government's claim that some of those weapons could be launched "within 45 minutes" of an order. That "duped" people into thinking the threat was much more urgent when the reality was that there was time to do things properly, she argued. "The claim the stuff was weaponised and might be used in 45 minutes was part of the secret commitment to a date, which meant everything had to be hurried along," she told BBC One's Politics Show. Mr Cook has also attacked the decision to go to war, he said the notion of Saddam using any weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was wrong. "We have not found any of these chemical shells capable of being used in 45 minutes or 45 hours. We have been in Iraq, since the war ended, for over 45 days and we have not found a single chemical shell. It is obvious that that statement was wrong."
31st May
2003
Straw, Powell had
serious doubts over their Iraqi
weapons claims - Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin
Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality
of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme at the
very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support
for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned. What are called
the "Waldorf transcripts" are being circulated in Nato
diplomatic circles. It is not being revealed how the
transcripts came to be made; however, they appear to have
been leaked by diplomats who supported the war against Iraq
even when the evidence about Saddam Hussein's programme of
weapons of mass destruction was fuzzy, and who now believe
they were lied to. People circulating the transcripts call
themselves "allied sources supportive of US war aims in Iraq
at the time". The transcripts will fuel the controversy in
Britain and the US over claims that London and Washington
distorted and exaggerated the intelligence assessments about
Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programme.
An unnamed intelligence official told the BBC on Thursday
that a key claim in the dossier on Iraq's weapons released
by the British government last September - that Iraq could
launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes of
an order - was inserted on the instructions of officials in
10 Downing Street.
30th May
2003
MI6
led protest against war dossier - agencies kept
quiet on claims over al-Qaida links and forgeries to avoid
embarrassing PM. It has also been claimed that Ministers
'distorted' the UN weapons
report. The PM's warning that Iraq could strike in 45
minutes now looks bogus, and we may never trust him again.
29th May
2003
WMD
emphasis was 'bureaucratic' - the decision to
highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main
justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for
"bureaucratic reasons", according to the US deputy defence
secretary. But in an interview with the American magazine
Vanity Fair, Paul Wolfowitz said there were many other
important factors as well. The famously hawkish Mr Wolfowitz
has been a long-time proponent of military action against
Iraq. Picking weapons of mass destruction was "the one
reason everyone could agree on", he says in the interview.
The other factor he describes as "huge" was that an attack
would allow the US to pull its troops from Saudi Arabia,
thereby resolving a major grievance held by al-Qaeda.
29th May
2003
Exposed: Bush and
Blair's war of lies - former Labour MP Tony Benn said: "I believe the Prime Minister lied to us and lied to us." MP Jeremy Corbyn said the war was "based on deception". Cook lead the anger at America's admission over Iraq's reputed weapons of mass destruction and said: "This war could have been avoided." Mr Blair - who with Mr Bush said WMDs were the reason for an invasion - was still insisting yesterday that they would be found. Veteran left-winger and former Cabinet minister Mr Benn said it destroyed the Prime Minister's justification for war. He said: "I believe the Prime Minister lied to us and lied to us and lied to us. "The whole war was built upon falsehood and I think the long-term damage will be to democracy in Britain. "If you can't believe what you are told by ministers, then the whole democratic process is put at risk. "Anti-war MP Mr Corbyn said: "We were led by the nose into a war based on deception and lies. Thousands of lives have been lost and the country destroyed. What has been achieved?"
29th May
2003
The Bush administration has conceded for the first time that Iraq's alleged arsenal of banned weapons, the principal justification for the US-led invasion, might never be found, after seven weeks of intensive searches and interrogations have failed to produce any substantial evidence. A report by the CIA and Defence Intelligence Agency yesterday concluded that two trucks found in northern Iraq with laboratory equipment represented the "strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare programme", but it conceded that no traces of biological agents had been found, nor was there any indication that the trucks had been used for that purpose. For the past few weeks US officials have been questioning several prominent Iraqi scientists alleged to have been involved in secret weapons programmes, including Rihab Taha, known as Dr Germ and Huda Ammash. But according to one US intelligence source "they're all saying everything had been destroyed". The Iraqi detainees have reportedly told their interrogators that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were disposed of, not just before the war as Mr Rumsfeld implied, but several years earlier.
23rd May
2003
Government dossier on Iraq was massaged and mislead Parliament - the government's 50-page dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, published before the war and heralded by the prime minister as strong evidence against the former Iraqi leader, was dramatically "transformed" against the wishes of intelligence agencies in order to make it more convincing. The BBC Radio 4 Today programme quoted an unnamed senior British official as saying that details - including the claim that chemical and biological weapons were ready for use within 45 minutes - were added to the document on the orders of Downing Street despite the reservations of intelligence officers. The unnamed official's statement, which was given to Today, said this claim was one of several which was added against the wishes of intelligence agencies, as it was taken from a single source they did not necessarily believe. The official also indicated that most people in intelligence were unhappy with the final version of the revamped dossier.
29th May
2003
Blair faces revolt as US admits doubts - seizing on the "breathtaking" admission by Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein may have destroyed his weapons, the former foreign secretary Robin Cook issued a blunt warning to the prime minister that he took Britain to war on a false basis. Pressed about his pre-war warning that Iraqi weapons could be fired within 45 minutes of an order, Mr Blair appeared to contradict Mr Rumsfeld. "I have said throughout and I repeat I have absolutely no doubt about the existence of weapons of mass destruction." Saying that Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, should have been allowed to carry on with his work, Mr Cook mocked Mr Blair's claims about the Iraqi threat. "We were told Saddam had weapons ready for use within 45 minutes. It's now 45 days since the war finished and we still have not found anything ... We could have avoided this war." Peter Kilfoyle said "The potential charge is that the House of Commons has been misled."
24th May
2003
Blix suspects there are no weapons of mass destruction - the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said yesterday that he suspected that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. He said: "The main justification for the war was weapons of mass destruction, and it may turn out that in this respect the war was not justified." He referred to Saddam Hussein's chief scientific adviser, Lieutenant General Amer al-Saadi, who surrendered last month and said in an interview: "Nothing else will come out after the end of the war. The fact that al-Saadi surrendered and said there were no weapons of mass destruction has led to me to ask myself whether there actually were any," Dr Blix said. "I don't see why he would still be afraid of the regime. Other leading figures have said the same."
23rd May
2003
CIA to review pre-war advice - the CIA has launched a review of intelligence assessments of Iraq's banned weapons programme and its links with al-Qaida, to see how the intelligence community's pre-war pronouncements compared with reality.
12th May
2003
Short quits Blair's government
accusing Tony Blair of breaching assurances he made to her.
In her letter she states "As you
know, I thought the run-up to the conflict in Iraq was
mishandled, but I agreed to stay in the government to help
support the reconstruction effort for the people of Iraq. I
am afraid that the assurances you gave me about the need for
a UN mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have
been breached. The security council resolution that you and
Jack have so secretly negotiated contradicts the assurances
I have given in the House of Commons and elsewhere about the
legal authority of the occupying powers, and the need for a
UN-led process to establish a legitimate Iraqi government.
This makes my position impossible." Ms Short went further in
an interview with Radio 4's the World at One programme.
Describing the latest draft UN resolution on Iraq as
"shameful" and "indefensible", Ms Short said the US and UK
were "occupying powers in occupied territory" who had no
authority to bring in a legitimate Iraqi government without
the UN. "I don't believe in the legality and wisdom of the
action the UK is taking in the Security Council. These are
very serious mistakes," she said.
12th May
2003
Weapons taskforce
leaves in failure - the US
military task force hunting for chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons in Iraq is to leave within a month, having
found no trace of any illegal weapons. "We came to bear
country, we came loaded for bear, and we found out the bear
wasn't here," an officer with the US defence intelligence
agency was quoted as saying.
11th May
2003
Bush
ally set to profit from the war on
terror - James Woolsey, former CIA boss and influential
adviser to President George Bush, is a director of a US firm
aiming to make millions of dollars from the 'war on terror'.
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and George
Shultz all profit from the war on Iraq.
11th May
2003
US
rivals turn on each other as weapons search draws a blank -
one key argument for war was the peril from weapons of mass
destruction. Now top officials are worried by repeated
failures to find the proof - and US intelligence agencies
are engaged in a struggle to avoid the blame. A massive
picture of intelligence misuse has emerged.
10th May
2003
The
new caliphs - common sense demands that the UN's weapons
inspectors return to Iraq without any further delay. As Tony
Blair reaffirmed recently, the threat thought to be posed by
Iraqi weapons was the principal reason for launching the
war. Without independent, international verification of
Iraq's capability, any future US and British evidence
showing their action to be justified may not be believed.
The US argument that security concerns prevent the UN's
return will not wash; its own search teams have been at work
for weeks, although they have found nothing of any great
significance. Suspicions thus gain ground that Washington
and London exaggerated the WMD threat for political
purposes, that their intelligence was either faulty or used
selectively, and that they now have something to
hide.
10th May
2003
Blueprint gives coalition
control of oil - America and Britain yesterday laid out
their blueprint for postwar Iraq in a draft resolution to
the United Nations security council, naming themselves as
"occupying powers" and giving them control of the country's
oil revenues. The proposal relegates the UN to an advisory
role.
9th May
2003
Ken
Livingstone expresses the sentiments of many - the Lord
Mayor of London said: "I think George Bush is the most
corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties. He
is not the legitimate president." Mr Livingstone later
added: "This really is a completely unsupportable government
and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I
looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown."
9th May
2003
More
evidence of improper financial activities
of US Administration - Cheney firm paid millions in bribes
to Nigerian official, an influential Pentagon adviser is
accused of a new conflict of interests after it was revealed
that he had briefed investors on how to profit from a
potential war with Iraq or North Korea after attending a
classified intelligence meeting on the two countries.
9th May
2003
Hypocrisy of US
Administration - the two faces of Rumsfeld, in 2000 he was a
director (earning $190,000 a year) of a company which wins
$200m contract to sell nuclear reactors to North Korea. In
2002 he declares North Korea a terrorist state, part of the
axis of evil and a target for regime change.
4th May
2003
A
senior Washington official claims that Saddam Hussein may
have got rid of most of his weapons of mass destruction
before the war. Peter
Kilfoyle, the former Defence Minister, said if there were no
weapons of mass destruction then Parliament would have been
misled. 'We were told there was intelligence which suggested
that there was this site and that site where there would be
WMD,' he said. 'They have been given plenty of time to find
it. If there is any doubt, we should bring back Hans Blix
(the UN weapons inspector) and his team, and they can
confirm what we all believe - that this was all a
myth to begin
with.'
3rd May
2003
UN
role in Iraq remains mired in confusion -Tony Blair is
struggling to get the US to
agree to UN involvement in the reconstruction of
Iraq.
3rd May
2003
New
Zealand warns on 'law of the jungle' - one of Tony Blair's
closest foreign political allies has warned Britain and America
that they may live to regret unleashing the "law of the
jungle" in international relations when China becomes the
dominant world power later this century. The Labour prime
minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, told the Guardian that
Washington and its allies had created a dangerous precedent
by going to war without a UN resolution. "It would be very
easy for a country like New Zealand to make excuses and
think of justifications for what its friends were doing, but
we would have to be mindful that we were creating precedents
for others also to exit from multilateral decision making,"
she said.
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