A senior member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet said in an interview published Wednesday that "rogue elements" within the intelligence services were responsible for claims that the government exaggerated the threat posed by Iraqi weapons.
The claim by John Reid, the Leader of the House of Commons, came after an influential parliamentary committee said it would investigate whether the government presented accurate information about Saddam Hussein's weapons before deciding to go to war.
With no weapons of mass destruction yet found in Iraq, the government is under increasing pressure to explain claims in an intelligence dossier that supported Blair's main argument for military action -- that the weapons presented a real threat.
The latest round of controversy about the weapons was fueled by a report on BBC Radio quoting an unidentified "senior British official" as saying that intelligence officers were unhappy about the inclusion in the dossier of evidence they regarded as unreliable -- such as a claim that weapons could be activated within 45 minutes.
Reid appeared to be responding to the BBC report when he gave his interview to The Times of London newspaper.
"There have been uncorroborated briefings by a potentially rogue element -- or indeed rogue elements -- in the intelligence services," he was quoted as saying.
"This is getting ridiculous. We have not found WMD (weapons of mass destruction) yet, but we have not found Saddam Hussein -- and everyone knows he existed," Reid added.
Blair has denied that his office doctored the intelligence dossier to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq's weapons, which he says existed and will eventually be found by coalition forces.
However, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said late Tuesday that it would soon conduct an exhaustive investigative inquiry into the decision to go to war.
It issued a statement saying it would consider whether the Foreign Office, "within the government as a whole, presented accurate and complete information to Parliament in the period leading up to military action in Iraq, particularly in relation to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS