Enver Masud, "Deadly Deception,
Pretexts for War," Wisdom Fund, July 30, 2001
Robert Fisk, "Saddam Statue Scene
Staged," The Independent, April 11, 2003
"Iraq War Over, Questions Remain,"
The Independent, April 16, 2003
["A month has passed since American and British troops entered Iraq,
more than a week since the fall of Baghdad. But thus far not even a
sniff. Not a drum of VX or mustard gas, not a phial of botulin or
anthrax, not a shred of evidence that Iraq was assembling a nuclear
weapons programme."--"So where are they Mr. Blair?," Independent, April 20,
2003]
["Cynics suspect the U.S. will shortly 'discover' a smoking gun to
justify the invasion, even if one must be created. Otherwise, why
would the U.S. refuse to allow UN inspectors to join the hunt? Doing
so would authenticate any future U.S. claims."--Eric Margolis, "Bush and
Blair and the Big Lie," Canoe, April 20, 2003]
Robert Scheer, "Did Bush Deceive Us in His Rush to War?," Los Angeles Times,
April 22, 2003
"Case
for war built on fake reports, claims Blix," Reuters, April 23, 2003
Bronwen Maddox, "Reports
of weapons 'greatly exaggerated'," Times (UK), April 25, 2003
["Ansar al Islam's bases show that the Al Qaeda surrogate posed no
serious threat beyond its mountain borders, despite what Powell
asserted before the war. ."--Jeffrey Fleishman, "Militants'
Crude Camp Casts Doubt on U.S. Claims," Los Angeles Times,
April 27, 2003
Raymond Whitaker, "Revealed: How the road to war was paved with
lies," Independent (UK), April 27, 2003
["Does it matter that we were misled into war? Some people say that
it doesn't: we won, and the Iraqi people have been freed. But we
ought to ask some hard questions - not just about Iraq, but about
ourselves.
". . . aren't the leaders of a democratic nation supposed to tell
their citizens the truth?
"One wonders whether most of the public will ever learn that the
original case for war has turned out to be false."--Paul Krugman,
"Matters of Emphasis," New
York Times, April 29, 2003]
Andrea Mitchell, "Where is the feared Iraqi arsenal?," NBC News, May 1, 2003
["The C.I.A. was terribly damaged when William Casey, its director
in the Reagan era, manipulated intelligence to exaggerate the Soviet
threat in Central America to whip up support for Ronald Reagan's
policies. Now something is again rotten in the state of
Spookdom."--Nicholas D. Kristof, "Missing
in Action: Truth," New York Times, May 6, 2003]
["The group directing all known U.S. search efforts for weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq is winding down operations without finding
proof that President Saddam Hussein kept clandestine stocks of
outlawed arms, according to participants."--Barton Gellman, "Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq," Washington
Post, May 11, 2003]
Seymour M. Hersh, "Selective
Intelligence," New Yorker, May 12, 2003
["The Bush administration has changed its tune on Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction, the reason it went to war there. Instead of
looking for vast stocks of banned materials, it is now pinning its
hopes on finding documentary evidence.
"In his March 17 speech giving Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 48
hours to leave the country, Bush said: 'Intelligence gathered by
this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime
continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons
ever devised.'
"Earlier, in a speech last Oct. 7, Bush said: 'The Iraqi regime . .
. possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is
seeking nuclear weapons.
"'We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical
agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas . . .
,'-- "Bush Officials
Change Tune on Iraqi Weapons," New York Times, May 14, 2003]
[Her Iraqi guards had long fled, she was being well cared for - and doctors
had already tried to free her.--John Kampfner, "The truth
about Jessica," Guardian, May 15, 2003]
Julian Borger, "US
finds evidence of WMD at last - buried in a field near
Maryland," Guardian, May 28, 2003
Michael Evans, Philip Webster and Roland Watson, "Inquiry
into Saddam arms dossier claims," Times, May 29, 2003
Ben Russell and Andy McSmith, "The
case for war is blown apart," Independent, May 29, 2003
["There was no bunker under the Baghdad compound the United States
bombed on the opening night of the Iraq war in an effort to kill
Saddam Hussein, . . ."--"No Bunker Found Under Bomb Site," New York Times,
May 29, 2003]
David Usborne, "WMD just a convenient excuse for war, admits
Wolfowitz," Independent, May 30, 2003
Nicholas Watt, Richard Norton-Taylor and Michael White, "Ministers
'distorted' UN weapons report," Guardian, May 30, 2003
["Australian intelligence agencies made it clear to the Government
all along that Iraq did not have a massive WMD program (that dubious
honour remains restricted to at least China, France, India, Iran,
Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Britain and the US).
Nor was Saddam Hussein co-operating actively with al-Qaeda. And
there was no indication Iraq was intending to pass WMDs to
terrorists."--Andrew Wilkie, "A lack of intelligence," Sydney
Morning Herald, May 30, 2003]
Dan Plesch and Richard Norton-Taylor, "Straw,
Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims: Secret transcript
revealed," Guardian, May 31, 2003
Raymond Whitaker, Paul Lashmar and Andy McSmith, "Revealed: How Blair used discredited WMD 'evidence',"
Independent, June 1, 2003
Glen Rangwala, "The lies that led us into war: the UK and the US manipulated
UN reports," Independent, June 1, 2003
Dana Milbank, "Bush Remarks Confirm Shift in Justifying
War," Washington Post, June 1, 2003
[Mr Cook said it now appeared that
the Government had made a "monumental blunder" over Iraq. "In the
real world, governments make mistakes but what they must never do is
try to deny and cover up these mistakes," he said. "The Government
should admit it was wrong and it needs to set up a thorough
independent inquiry into how it got it wrong, so it never happens
again and we never again send British troops into action on the
basis of a mistake."--Nigel Morris and Andy McSmith, "Blair puts credibility on line as weapons row builds,"
Independent, June 2, 2003]
[The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but with the
Bush and Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they demanded
reports supporting their case, while dismissing contrary
evidence.--Paul Krugman, "Standard Operating Procedure," New York Times, June
3, 2003]
[the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) formally concluded that
"there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and
stockpiling chemical weapons" in September 2002, just as Pentagon
chief Donald Rumsfeld was telling Congress that the Baghdad "regime
has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons,
including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas".--Jim Lobe, "The
truth, the whole truth and nothing but ...," Asia Times, June 4,
2003]
Andrew Grice and David Usborne, "The Niger connection: Tony Blair, forged documents and the
case for war," Independent, June 5, 2003
[American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to
the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found
in Iraq were for making deadly germs.--Judith Miller and William J.
Broad, "Some Analysts of
Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use," New York Times, June 7, 2003]
Andrew Buncombe, "Pentagon report found 'no reliable evidence' of WMD in
Iraq," Independent, June 7, 2003
Dana Priest and Walter Pincus, "Bush Certainty On Iraq Arms Went Beyond Analysts' Views,"
Washington Post, June 7, 2003
Peter Beaumont and Antony Barnett, "Blow
to Blair over 'mobile labs'," Independent, June 8, 2003
[The top-secret report by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) last
September concluded that it could find no evidence of chemical
weapons activity in Iraq. 'There is no reliable information on
whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, in its
one-page summary said.--Marion McKeone, "Why America is waking up to
the truth about WMD," Sunday Herald, June 8, 2003]
[Had FOX and other news outlets adequately reported on what both
Powell had already conceded was a forgery, the American people might
have a better appreciation as to why they should care.--Ray
McGovern, "Deceived
into War," CounterPunch, June 12, 2003]
Peter Beaumont, Antony Barnett and Gaby Hinsliff, "Iraqi
mobile labs nothing to do with germ warfare, report finds," Observer, June 15, 2003
Matthew Tempest, "Cook
doubts Saddam threat,," Guardian, June 17, 2003
[Khidir Hamza, the scientist claimed by the Sunday Times as the
source of the fake documents, was sent by the Pentagon to Iraq last
month to oversee the country's nuclear industry.--Solomon Hughes,
"The
Pentagon has sent the man at the heart of a 'fake documents' scandal
to Iraq," Tribune, June 23, 2003]
Christopher Scheer, "10 Appalling
Lies We Were Told About Iraq," AlterNet, June 27, 2003
Joseph C. Wilson, "What
I didn't find in Africa," New York Times, July 6, 2003
Ewen MacAskill and Richard Norton-Taylor, "Experts
grow more sceptical about extent of threat posed by Saddam
before war,," Guardian, July 7, 2003
[The former head of the UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix has told a
British newspaper that Tony Blair made a "fundamental mistake" in
claiming that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass
destruction in 45 minutes.--"Blair
made WMD mistake says Blix," BBC News, July 13, 2003]
Scott Ritter, "A
Weapons Cache We'll Never See," New York Times, August 25, 2003
"CIA
admits lack of specifics on Iraqi weapons before invasion," AFP,
November 30, 2003
Patrick Cockburn, "
America quietly sacks its prize witness against Saddam," Independent,
April 17, 2004