By Ray McGovern
British ‘Intelligence’ is still weaving whole cloth for the [David] Sanger Sewing Machine, just in time for it to be “wowed at” on today’s Sunday TV talk shows.
This time it is the Russians, who supposedly are, in addition to everything else, now plotting a coup in Ukraine [Ed. like the West did exactly 8 years ago?]. ( See this morning’s piece co-authored by Sanger: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/22/world/europe/ukraine-russia-coup-britain.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20220123&instance_id=51083&nl=the-morning®i_id=69540701&segment_id=80520&te=1&user_id=e69a6cb2bbba5cd47ffe27ec9fb45fbe .)
This episode brings a wicked flashback to Sept. 2002 when miscreants in British ‘Intelligence’ astounded the world by reporting that Saddam Hussein could order a chemical attack that would go boom in just 45 minutes! That piece of fabricated ‘intelligence’ was seized on to help get Congress to approve the US/UK attack on Iraq. (If memory serves, it also was given pride of place on the Sunday TV talk shows — as was the case this morning with the latest British drivel.)
The “Lord Butler report” in July of 2004 poured discredit on that ‘intelligence’ and the way Tony Blair used it. https://irp.fas.org/world/uk/butler071404.pdf
Even former CIA Director George Tenet, not particularly known for his honesty, seemed to lapse into momentary truth, when he alluded to that British report on Iraq as the “they-can-attack-in-45-minutes shit”. Yes, that’s how he described it to Bob Woodward later. It would have been nice if Tenet had had the courage and integrity to have told the rest of the world THEN, before Cheney and Bush created havoc in the Middle East. Tenet was one of the few acutely aware of what was going on and — specifically — how intelligence (over which he had purview) was being politicized.
We in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) tried to warn President George W. Bush that attacking Iraq would bring “consequences likely to be catastrophic”. See our “Powell’s UN Speech and the Case for War”, Feb. 5, 2003 ( https://consortiumnews.com/2003/02/05/powells-un-speech-and-the-case-for-war/ ). Neither Bush nor Cheney were listening to us; they were listening to Cheney.