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UK intelligence `abused` to make case for Iraq war, says ex-chief

IRNA

London, Dec 6, IRNA -- A former British intelligence chief has added 
to the controversy over the justification used for invading Iraq by 
accusing his successors of abusing their position in helping Prime 
Minister Tony Blair make a case for the war. 
The government`s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) whose members 
include the heads of MI6, MI5, and GCHQ, "stepped outside its 
traditional role", the former JIC chairman, Sir Rodric Braithwaite, 
said. 
In a damning speech at the Royal International Institute for 
International Affairs in London Friday, he accused the committee of 
bowing to government pressure to use secret intelligence to justify a 
war when other arguments were "cutting too little ice with the 
public." 
"It entered the prime minister`s magic circle. It was engulfed in 
the atmosphere of excitement which surrounds decision-making in a 
crisis," Braithwaite said. 
He said that in the government`s controversial dossier on Iraq`s 
threat, the intelligence chiefs "went beyond assessment to become 
part of the process of making and advocating policy. That inevitably 
undermined their objectivity." 
The former JIC head mentioned no names, but according to the 
Guardian newspaper Saturday, he made it clear his main target was the 
current committee chairman, John Scarlett, who developed a close 
relationship with Blair`s communications chief, Alastair Campbell, as 
they drew up the dossier published in September 2002. 
"We live in a democracy, and in a democracy the government should 
not try to justify its actions on the basis of information it is not 
prepared to reveal," he warned in reference to the abuse of secret 
intelligence. 
His criticism comes ahead of next month`s publication of the 
report into the death of former Iraq arms inspector David Kelly, 
which is expected to include a damning indictment of the workings of 
the government in the build up to the Iraq war. 
HC/212 
End