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Security - new material (19)

01 November 2003

Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction - Intelligence and Assessments. Intelligence and Security Committee September 2003, Cm 5972 (£10.50), pp.57. The ISC is the oversight committee examining the expenditure, administration and policy of the UK's three intelligence services MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. It was the government's chosen vehicle to investigate their spurious claims concerning Saddam Hussain's weapons of mass destruction - the explicit justification for the invasion of Iraq. The report concludes that "Ministers did not mislead Parliament".

Annual Report 2002-2003. Intelligence and Security Committee. June 2003, Cm 5837 (£8), pp.31

Spain: Al Jazeera journalist released on medical grounds: Tayseer Alouni, the 56-year-old Al Jazeera journalist arrested on 11 September 2003 on suspicion of being part of Al Qaida, was released on bail (6,000 Euros) on 23 October 2003 on medical grounds, "for humanitarian reasons due to the existence of a serious risk for his health". El País, 24.10.2003

A Wilderness of Mirrors, Philip Knightley. Independent on Sunday 5.10.03. The author Philip Knightley dissects the abject failure of the British (and US) intelligence services to predict that Iraq had no viable weapons of mass destruction (wmd) and situates it within a "long list of intelligence failures". He says that the absurdly spurious claims about Saddam's wmd may be attributed to spymasters "attuned to the mood of the politicians who pay their salaries. If SIS and JIC were aware that the Government was determined to invade Iraq but needed to make a case for war to get the British public on side, then wishful thinking may have led them to believe the 45 minute claim and the existence of weapons of mas destruction."