UK Ordered To Publish Iraq WMD Documents

By Cernig

There's breaking news from the UK that might put the cat among the wingnut pigeons over false statements made in the lead up to war with Iraq.

The Foreign Office has been ordered to publish an early draft of the controversial dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

An information tribunal has ruled that the unpublished document, which was a precursor to the final dossier on Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs, must be made public.

The final document, which was issued by then prime minister Tony Blair in September 2002, was at the centre of a government scandal after accusations that the dossier had been 'sexed up' in order to encourage support for an invasion of Iraq.

Weapons expert Dr David Kelly was also found dead shortly after he was named as a media source for a documentary into the composition and collection of the information contained in the papers.

...Critics of the process used to put together the dossier point to allegations, originally made by the BBC, that government spin doctors added in a claim that then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had the ability to launch WMDs within 45 minutes.

This was seen as one of the crux issues in the debate over whether military action was used against Hussein and Iraq in 2003.

Following today's outrage from the Right over an online database of hundreds of Bush administration falsehoods in the run up to the invasion, if the earlier version of the UK dossier really does show that later pronouncements were deliberately "sexed up" then they're going to find themselves on thin ice defending what appear to many to be at the very least lies of omission.