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Former Australian Weapons Inspector Turns Whistleblower: MI6 boss ’tried to sex up’ Iraq study

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 15 May 2005
3 comments

Wars and conflicts International Secret Services UK

Sir John Scarlett, head of MI6, has been accused of trying ’to sex up’ a report by the Iraq Survey Group, the body charged with finding weapons of mass destruction after Saddam Hussein was toppled.

In an exclusive interview, Dr Rod Barton, a former senior weapons inspector in Iraq, has revealed extraordinary details of how Scarlett and a top Ministry of Defence official intervened in a report by the ISG early last year.

Barton, who has worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years, was a special adviser to the ISG in 2004 as it prepared to report that they had found no WMD or any programmes to build them. Such a report would have been politically damaging in London in the aftermath of the David Kelly affair.

The body of scientist David Kelly was found at the height of an acrimonious row between the BBC and Downing Street over whether the government had ’sexed up’ evidence on WMD in Iraq.

Speaking from Canberra, Barton describes how in January last year he received a visit in Baghdad from Martin Howard, deputy chief of defence intelligence at the MoD. Howard had been criticised for helping to ’out’ Kelly as the source of Andrew Gilligan’s BBC story alleging Downing Street had ’sexed up’ the September dossier on Iraq’s WMD.

Barton alleges Howard ’spelt out’ that Britain’s preferred option was that a proposed 200-page ISG interim report should not be published at that stage. Barton claims the CIA overruled their UK counterparts. He alleges that after this Scarlett, then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, tried to get ’nuggets’ placed into a shorter report to imply that Saddam did have a WMD programme.

According to Barton, these were based on old evidence that had been investigated and shown to be false. It is understood to include suggestions that Saddam was developing a smallpox weapon and using research to create a nuclear programme.

Barton added: ’The US has finally come to terms with the fact they got it dead wrong. The UK is lagging far behind. They still haven’t come to terms with it.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1484286,00.html

Forum posts

  • "’The US has finally come to terms with the fact they got it dead wrong. The UK is lagging far behind. They still haven’t come to terms with it."

    I’m not sure how he comes to the conclusion they ’got it dead wrong’ when he was not allowed to present the truth at that time. David Kelly was killed for speaking the truth. They didn’t make a mistake, they lied! They created ’evidence’ and then killed or silenced anyone getting in the way.

    No apology, nothing they do will change that fact. Everyone, except for our politicans and brainwashed corporate media viewers KNEW this was all a lie before the war. They didn’t even try very hard......a plagarized student thesis....the forged Uranium documents without even proper dates or signatures. The elite think the serfs are incredibly stupid.

  • Remember that this is a career public servant. What we just read is what he is_prepared_ to state. I’d like himto really put his ’nads on the table and spell it out to his friends, that they are .......... (I am sure we know what they are and words like weasals, liars etc come close). Anyone with half a brain knew it was a con job all along. This whole excersize (the Iraq war) has been a great opportunity for those with half a brain to really see how dumb our friends just might be and thatmost people really do believe what the corporate media tell them. It helped me decide to give up trying to talk logic, reason, truth to my friends, I just accept that they are peasants. surfs when it comes to this kind of thing. So Barton is not talking ot these people cos they can’t read 4 paragraphs anyway, he is talking to those in Britain who he worked with accross various levels and fields. BUT, if he had any true integrity he woudl have said 2 yrs ago before this mess started that it is a lie and people will die for these lies, not the usual "we were misled, mixed up, misinformed. I hold people like Barton responsible for letting hte charade go on. Its a shame that ones pension means that much to them, but thats a result of how th emachine keaps its little toads in line

    • Yet another man puts his head above the parapet and still the criminal war mongers just carry on. When, oh when are these murdering scum going to held accountable for their evil?