(UK) Press officer wrote 'dodgy' WMD dossier says MP

[sabra]

Source: Daily Mail

The first full draft of the Government's notorious 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was written by a press officer and not intelligence chiefs, an MP claimed today.

Tory John Baron (Billericay), in a Westminster Hall debate, said John Williams, the then director of news at the Foreign Office started the drafting process.

His document was requested by, and passed to, Sir John Scarlett, chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the day before he wrote what became the published document.

...

Mr Baron said his new evidence contradicted the conclusions of the Hutton and Butler inquiries, both of which concluded that the drafting process was "owned" by the JIC.

"New evidence shows that spin doctors were not just shaping decisions about the content, they were also helping to write the dossier itself," Mr Baron said.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=461757&in_page_id=1770

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. is this the dossier cut and pasted from a student's dissertation or was it the other one?

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,966208,00.html

get confused with the all the coverups and spins

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. It's the 'other' one, ie the David Kelly/"45 minutes" one

Here's the website by Chris Ames - the private individual who is driving all this: http://iraqdossier.com/

[Rosa Luxemburg]

5. thanks!

there was so much lying going on there it is hard to follow

[MrPrax]

4. Political Consultants killed 500,000 people?

Nawh...elected politicians did and the last time I looked they were still killing for no credible rationale other than racist imperialism.

But at least the British are efficient -- why have a whole Office of Special Planning when you can just get a guy to jot down 'talking points' on a napkin.

"Have the Prime Minister mention nuclear missiles and how they could wipe out life in Britain in like twenty minutes"
"No one would buy that"
"Okay...how about 45 minutes?"
"Much better..."