Scott Ritter: Look to what is missing from the Hutton report

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1134768,00.html

Tony Blair's government is heralding the Hutton report as a victory, since it absolves it of any wrongdoing regarding the "sexing up" of intelligence about the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

The Hutton report was released at the same time as the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, testified before the US Congress that there appear to be no WMD in Iraq, and that the intelligence was "all wrong". Given this, the Hutton findings have taken on an almost Alice in Wonderland aura. By focusing on a single news story broadcast by the BBC, Hutton has created a political smokescreen behind which Blair is seeking to distract the British public from the harsh reality that his government went to war based on unsustained allegations that have yet to be backed up with a single piece of substantive fact. Lord Hutton was in a position to expose this; he chose not to. It is left to the public, therefore, to carefully examine his report, looking not for what it contains but for what is missing.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Thanks for posting, TiB

Scott Ritter's activities prior to the war were one of the major reasons why I was out marching against it at this time last year. He was in a position to know what Saddam had, and he wasn't afraid to let us know.

There is no escaping the fact that any honest assessment of available intelligence would have made rational men pause before going to war. Blair and Bush knew this and lied. The current pronouncements coming from Washington and London to the effect of the intelligence was bad is ludicrous. It is nothing more than spin. They are desperate for some way to explain how all those weapons that Mr. Powell describes and Mr. Rumsfeld located just weren't really there; the CIA and MI5 are the fall guys.

It won't wash. Next they'll be saying, "the Devil made me do it."

[T_i_B]

2. The major reason I protested the war...

..was that I could not see any link between Saddam and Al-Qaida. That has stayed the case and as such the war on Iraq has proved to be not so much a war to defeat terrorism but a war to breed it.

The thing is though, I started marching against the war in September 2002 the Saturday after Blair's infamous dossier was published. Scott Ritter was the main speaker at the Hyde Park rally. He said at the time that it was a load of old tripe and on WMD's he has been proved right.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. The lack of an al Qaida connection was the other

Of course, you and I knew there was few if any WMDs; you and I knew that there was no al Qaida connection; and you and I knew that the intelligence was being cooked, thanks in part to your fine British press.

So, since you and I knew it, there was no real excuse for the charade then. And there is no real excuse for the charade now. The idea that there was ever anything wrong with the intelligence that pushing the war didn't make wrong is ludicrous.

[T_i_B]

4. Well the other main reason I had for opposing it

was that none of the other reasons given proved to be anything even remotely resembling good convincing arguments for war. And I say that as somebody who thinks that we were right to take military action in Afghanistan, Kosovo, the first Gulf war, and the Falklands. I could see flaws in the WMD argument even if Saddam actually had the offending weapons.

This is getting kinda like the conversations were were having in the summer of 2002 when the idea of invading Iraq was first mooted Jack!