Posted 8:11 PM by Dil
December 28, 2003

Revealed: how MI6 sold the Iraq war
Nicholas Rufford
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-944831,00.html


THE Secret Intelligence Service has run an operation to gain public support for sanctions and the use of military force in Iraq. The government yesterday confirmed that MI6 had organised Operation Mass Appeal, a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
The revelation will create embarrassing questions for Tony Blair in the run-up to the publication of the report by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the government weapons expert.

A senior official admitted that MI6 had been at the heart of a campaign launched in the late 1990s to spread information about Saddam’s development of nerve agents and other weapons, but denied that it had planted misinformation. “There were things about Saddam’s regime and his weapons that the public needed to know,” said the official.

The admission followed claims by Scott Ritter, who led 14 inspection missions in Iraq, that MI6 had recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort. He described meetings where the senior officer and at least two other MI6 staff had discussed ways to manipulate intelligence material.

“The aim was to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was,” Ritter said last week.

He said there was evidence that MI6 continued to use similar propaganda tactics up to the invasion of Iraq earlier this year. “Stories ran in the media about secret underground facilities in Iraq and ongoing programmes (to produce weapons of mass destruction),” said Ritter. “They were sourced to western intelligence and all of them were garbage.”

Kelly, himself a former United Nations weapons inspector and colleague of Ritter, might also have been used by MI6 to pass information to the media. “Kelly was a known and government-approved conduit with the media,” said Ritter.

Hutton’s report is expected to deliver a verdict next month on whether intelligence was misused in order to promote the case for going to war. Hutton heard evidence that Kelly was authorised by the Foreign Office to speak to journalists on Iraq. Kelly was in close touch with the “Rockingham cell”, a group of weapons experts that received MI6 intelligence.

Blair justified his backing for sanctions and for the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that intelligence reports showed Saddam was working to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The use of MI6 as a “back channel” for promoting the government’s policies on Iraq was never discovered during the Hutton inquiry and is likely to cause considerable disquiet among MPs.

A key figure in Operation Mass Appeal was Sir Derek Plumbly, then director of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office and now Britain’s ambassador to Egypt. Plumbly worked closely with MI6 to help to promote Britain’s Middle East policy.

The campaign was judged to be having a successful effect on public opinion. MI6 passed on intelligence that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and rebuilding its arsenal.

Poland, India and South Africa were initially chosen as targets for the campaign because they were non-aligned UN countries not supporting the British and US position on sanctions. At the time, in 1997, Poland was also a member of the UN security council.

Ritter was a willing accomplice to the alleged propaganda effort when first approached by MI6’s station chief in New York. He obtained approval to co-operate from Richard Butler, then executive chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq Disarmament.

Ritter met MI6 to discuss Operation Mass Appeal at a lunch in London in June 1998 at which two men and a woman from MI6 were present. The Sunday Times is prevented by the Official Secrets Act from publishing their names.

Ritter had previously met the MI6 officer at Vauxhall Cross, the service’s London headquarters. He asked Ritter for information on Iraq that could be planted in newspapers in India, Poland and South Africa from where it would “feed back” to Britain and America.

Ritter opposed the Iraq war but this is the first time that he has named members of British intelligence as being involved in a propaganda campaign. He said he had decided to “name names” because he was frustrated at “an official cover-up” and the “misuse of intelligence”.

“What MI6 was determined to do by the selective use of intelligence was to give the impression that Saddam still had WMDs or was making them and thereby legitimise sanctions and military action against Iraq,” he said.

Recent reports suggest America has all but abandoned hopes of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, has resigned earlier than expected, frustrated that his resources have been diverted to tracking down insurgents.

Posted 7:52 AM by Dil
December 24, 2003

Trust me. They want us to be scared and nervous
Simon Jenkins



I am hoping for a fear-free Christmas. Last year was dreadful, literally. The Government had a war to promote and decided to scare me witless. This year it has less excuse. Tony Blair has toppled Saddam Hussein and owes the nation a “reassurance dividend”.
The American Government has taken a different view. On Sunday Washington’s director of homeland security, Tom Ridge, summoned a surprised media and announced “credible intelligence” of a “possible near-term” terrorist attack that could “either rival or exceed what we experienced on September 11”. He even hinted at the hijacking of another plane. The threat from al-Qaeda was perhaps greater now than at any point since 2001. The threat also embraced America’s allies, which included Britain.



Mr Ridge said he was not asking Americans to alter their travel plans. Yet he raised the terror alert from yellow to orange, one stage below red. Not to be outdone, New York’s Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, rushed to the rostrum and repeated the words “major threat”, although he admitted that he knew of no specific attack aimed at New York City. He wanted New Yorkers to take comfort that they were so well protected.

How Americans or Britons are meant to take comfort from yet more mentions of al-Qaeda, terrorism, planes, airports and 9/11 is not clear. Mr Ridge gave no indication of how his dire warning should be used, beyond the policeman’s eternal demand for vigilance. He did not ban air travel or call for the public to stockpile dried milk or buy gas masks, as happened last year.

We are assured by those in the know that the threat from al-Qaeda is as great as ever. Sir John Stevens, the London Police Commissioner, said it was a quantum leap from what it was during the IRA campaign, which was itself murderous and horrible. Despite two bloody wars, tens of thousands of bombs and many thousands of corpses, the chief global terrorism culprit, Osama bin Laden, remains free and apparently operational. Yet there has been no outrage on British soil.

I regard this as good news. The Government regards it as bad, because it constantly tells us that Britain must be next. This time last year Downing Street was in a state of near hysteria. Frantic to boost the case for an Iraq war and find cover for the Cheriegate affair, Alastair Campbell orchestrated a blitz of media scares. Each weekend from November through the Christmas holiday and into January, the press was induced to lead on “Britain put on smallpox terror alert”, “ Killer anthrax threat to Britain”, “Gas horror on London Tube” and “Dirty bomb aimed at Christmas shoppers”.

The campaign was supplied with purple material by Sir David Omand, the Cabinet Office security co-ordinator, briefed by MI5 and MI6. As we now know from Hutton, both these organisations were under intense pressure from Downing Street to come up with hawkish material. Total rubbish about Saddam was peddled as high-grade intelligence. We have no way of knowing whether more sober minds were dealing with the al-Qaeda threat. The evidence so far is not encouraging.

The most bizarre threat was of smallpox. There was not a shred of intelligence that any enemy had quantities of smallpox, let alone in weapon form. Yet ministers in their Cobra bunker went berserk. They ordered 12 regional smallpox response groups across the nation. Seventy key workers were told to receive instant vaccination to be able to cope with millions of victims. An astonishing £100 million was found overnight to buy 50 million doses of vaccine. The ability of ministers to find huge amounts of money from nowhere under political duress never fails to impress me.

Smallpox was followed by an entire chemistry lab: by sarin, ricin, anthrax and, a Downing Street special, a “dirty bomb” to contaminate Christmas shoppers with radiation. The campaign reached its climax on February 11, when Mr Blair, “deep below Whitehall”, ordered tanks to encircle Heathrow to protect it from imminent assault. He claimed that al-Qaeda was racing through Hounslow in a white van packed with SAM missiles. Sir John Stevens gave his considered view that the whole of London was facing a dire terrorist threat. It cost London £1 million in cancelled flight bookings that weekend alone. I doubt if ministers gave that a second thought.

What is a sane citizen supposed to make of such apparent and blatant scaremongering? Since the dawn of time insecure governments have raised the spectre of a murky or convenient minority enemy to distract the public mind from more evident concerns. Stalin used the kulaks. Hitler used the Jews. Senator McCarthy used communists. The apartheid rulers of South Africa used schwarzgewaar, or fear of blacks. If the threat could be declared secret, and therefore undisclosable, so much the better.

A danger to national security from Muslim extremism cannot easily be disproved. Who can tell if last February’s tanks at Heathrow did not nip another Lockerbie in the bud? Who can tell if al-Qaeda’s war machine did not hear of John Prescott’s 12 regional centres and slink back home in fear? Who knows how many of the Muslims whom David Blunkett has dumped in jail without charge are, as he claims, dangerous terrorists?

I know that no bombs have exploded in Britain these past two years, and for that I must be glad. A serious price has been paid in public fear, anti-Muslim sentiment, loss of civil liberty and police overtime. Untold damage has been done to the tourist industry, Britain’s second biggest employer. But no outrage has occurred and, I repeat, I am glad.

My problem is that I have no way of assessing the risks against the costs. Democracy is not trusted with such a calculation. Am I more at danger from al-Qaeda than on a motorway or in a football crowd or climbing a mountain? These other risks I can assess for myself. In taking them I feel empowered and in partial control.

When government cries “terrorist!” it is accountable to none. It issues blood-curdling warnings and then says, trust us. Sir John is a dab hand at this game. He accompanies his regular threats with a comforting “people should not be alarmed”. Like the dictator Kim Il Sung, he wants the public ignorant but trusting of the powers that be. Mr Blunkett tells Britons to suspect foreigners with funny bags, to pay more taxes and to shut up about civil liberty.

The global security pundit John Steinbruner, of the University of Maryland, suggested on Monday that these scares were being used in America as insurance, to enable officials to claim “I told you so” should anything go wrong. Mr Ridge’s press conference offered the public no information that it could use for its own reassurance. He appeared merely to be covering his back.

As Professor Steinbruner pointed out, simply spreading fear under cover of vigilance plays the enemy’s game. “The whole point of terrorism is to induce victims to indulge in a self-destructive reaction,” he said. Terrorism is an auto-immune disease “designed to get the political system to damage itself”. It aims to erode the liberty of free societies by remote control.

This is what the War on Terror is now in real danger of achieving. I have no way of knowing whether this two-year war has been grossly overstated, whether it is supremely successful or whether it faces miserable defeat. All governments can say is give us more money and more power. Of course I want to be safer. I pay a fortune in taxes to that end. I might even accept some change in civil justice to enhance that safety, but only if convinced of the necessity. At Guantanamo Bay and Belmarsh prison I am not so convinced.

What I do not understand is how public officials spreading terror help to win this war. No practical advice was offered by Mr Ridge or Sir John. It seems that some al-Qaeda agent has merely to lift the phone to them and leave panic and spin to do the rest. It no longer takes a suicide attack to have the West quaking in its boots.

Britain has no mechanism for reviewing security scares to assess their validity or cost/benefit. The past two years have seen much loss of life and liberty in the cause of freeing me from fear. Yet London and Washington tell me I am less safe and therefore more afraid, which is just what bin Laden wants me to be.

This Christmas I shall cross my fingers and not believe any of them.

Posted 7:49 AM by Dil
Rumsfeld backed Saddam even after chemical attacks
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
24 December 2003


Fresh controversy about Donald Rumsfeld's personal dealings with Saddam Hussein was provoked yesterday by new documents that reveal he went to Iraq to show America's support for the regime despite its use of chemical weapons.

The formerly secret documents reveal the Defence Secretary travelled to Baghdad 20 years ago to assure Iraq that America's condemnation of its use of chemical weapons was made "strictly" in principle.

The criticism in no way changed Washington's wish to support Iraq in its war against Iran and "to improve bi-lateral relations ... at a pace of Iraq's choosing".

Earlier this year, Mr Rumsfeld and other members of the Bush administration regularly cited Saddam's willingness to use chemical weapons against his own people as evidence of the threat presented to the rest of the world.

Senior officials presented the attacks against the Kurds - particularly the notorious attack in Halabja in 1988 - as a justification for the invasion and the ousting of Saddam.

But the newly declassified documents reveal that 20 years ago America's position was different and that the administration of President Ronald Reagan was concerned about maintaining good relations with Iraq despite evidence of Saddam's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels.

In March 1984, under international pressure, America condemned Iraq's use of such chemical weapons. But realising that Baghdad had been upset, Secretary of State George Schultz asked Mr Rumsfeld to travel to Iraq as a special envoy to meet Saddam's Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, and smooth matters over.

In a briefing memo to Mr Rumsfeld, Mr Shultz wrote that he had met Iraqi officials in Washington to stress that America's interests remained "in (1) preventing an Iranian victory and (2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq".

The memo adds: "This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."

Exactly what Mr Rumsfeld, who at the time did not hold government office, told Mr Aziz on 26 March 1984, remains unclear and minutes from the meeting remain classified. No one from Mr Rumsfeld's office was available to comment yesterday.

It was not Mr Rumsfeld's first visit to Iraq. Four months earlier, in December 1983, he had visited Saddam and was photographed shaking hands with the dictator. When news of this visit was revealed last year, Mr Rumsfeld claimed he had "cautioned" Saddam to stop using chemical weapons.

When documents about the meeting disclosed he had said no such thing, a spokesman for Mr Rumsfeld said he had raised the issue with Mr Aziz.

America's relationship with Iraq at a time when Saddam was using chemical weapons is well-documented but rarely reported.

During the war with Iran, America provided combat assistance to Iraq that included intelligence on Iranian deployments and bomb-damage assessments. In 1987-88 American warships destroyed Iranian oil platforms in the Gulf and broke the blockade of Iraqi shipping lanes.

Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, a non-profit group that obtained the documents, told The New York Times: "Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980s and it didn't make any difference to US policy. The embrace of Saddam and what it emboldened him to do should caution us as Americans that we have to look closely at all our murky alliances."

Last night, Danny Muller, a spokesman for the anti-war group Voices in the Wilderness, said the documents revealed America's "blatant hypocrisy". He added: "This is not an isolated event. Continuing administrations have said 'we will do business'. I am surprised that Donald Rumsfeld does not resign right now."