Former PM Tony Blair claimed that Iraq had 'chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes'. Photo / AP
Two senior Iraqi politicians told Western intelligence that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction on the eve of the 2003 invasion but their warnings were ignored and then not reported to the subsequent Butler inquiry, according to a major new investigation.
Vital intelligence used to justify the invasion
of Iraq 10 years ago was based on "fabrication" and "wishful thinking", a BBC Panorama documentary claims today. While information from highly placed Iraqis was dismissed as unimportant if it indicated that Saddam did not have WMD, tipoffs from low-ranking Iraqis were eagerly lapped up if they reinforced what George W. Bush and Tony Blair wanted to hear, it is claimed.
Lord Robin Butler, who conducted the 2004 inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war, told the programme-makers that he later discovered a previously overlooked report which revealed that an MI6 officer had a meeting in Jordan with one of Iraq's most senior intelligence officers, Tahir Habbush al-Tikriti. Habbush told MI6 that there were no WMD left in Iraq.
"We discovered that it was part of the paperwork we got - after the event," Butler told Panorama's Peter Taylor. "This was something which I think our review did miss. But when we asked about it, we were told that it wasn't a very significant fact, because SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] discounted it as something designed by Saddam to mislead."
Several months before the war, the CIA's Paris station made contact through an intermediary with Iraq's Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri. Bill Murray, head of the CIA in Paris, reported to CIA headquarters that Iraq held "virtually nothing" in the way of WMD. That information was also passed to British intelligence.
