SHOCKER! Blair to escape serious censure
in Iraq intelligence report: newspapers
AFP
| July 11 2004
Comment: Did you expect anything else
from a guy B-LIAR appointed to investigate himself and who once said lying
was good government? Here, let me save you a week reading about 'intelligence
failures,' 'confusion' and 'misleading sources'. THEY LIED. THEY ALL LIED.
THEY WERE ALL IN IT TOGETHER. THEY LIED BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO START A WAR
THEY HAD BEEN PLANNING FOR YEARS. PERIOD.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair will escape
severe censure next week when an official inquiry gives its conclusions
about intelligence failings ahead of the Iraq war, reports said late Saturday.
The premier will face some criticism for an
over-presidential style of government, but will not be accused of urging
spy chiefs to hype up the threat posed by Iraq's alleged weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) stocks, Sunday newspapers said.
Instead, a senior intelligence officer and Blair's chief
political adviser will be most in the firing line when Lord Robin Butler
presents his findings on Wednesday, the papers said.
Blair tasked Butler, a former head of Britain's civil service,
in February with looking into possible failures of intelligence which led
to the belief that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs.
None have been found since Saddam was deposed by a US-led,
British-backed war last year, severely denting Blair's credibility.
A similar report in the United States reported on Friday,
and while it criticised US intelligence agencies, it largely absolved the
administration of President George W. Bush.
Blair would also escape, the Sunday Telegraph said, beyond
some concerns at his style of government, notably the informal gatherings
which decide many important decisions.
Instead, Jonathan Powell, an unelected adviser who is Blair's
chief of staff, would be the "main victim" of Butler report, the
paper said.
The inquiry was particularly worried about an e-mail written
by Powell in September 2002 to a senior intelligence official, John Scarlett,
suggesting changes to a government dossier setting out the public case for
war.
Powell asked that a section of the dossier by "redrafted"
as it appeared to present Saddam only as a threat if Iraq was under attack,
changes which Scarlett, chairman of Joint Intelligence Committee, agreed
to.
Scarlett -- whom Blair named in May as the new head of
intelligence agency MI6 -- would also face criticism, the Sunday Times said,
adding that Butler's reports would have some more general recommendations.
"It says that in the future, intelligence must not
be misused for the purposes of making a political point," someone identified
as a "senior official" who had read final draft told the paper.
The prime minister himself was set to treat the report
with defiance, still insisting the decision to go to war was correct, the
Sunday Times added.
According to the Independent on Sunday, the report was
expected to be "less fierce" than the US Senate equivalent last
week.
Nonetheless, Butler was withholding
some key criticisms from documents seen by the government to prevent ministers
from trying to manipulate media coverage, it added.
