July 28, 2003

America's 'murky' intelligence muddies the water
By David Charter, Chief Political Correspondent, London Times:

Tony Blair's difficulties over weapons of mass destruction deepened last night when the US Government admitted that the Iraq war had been fought on the basis of “murky intelligence”.

The Prime Minister was already facing tough questions about British intelligence with the failure to find Iraq’s weapons and the controversy over government claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium.

But his problems worsened when Paul Wolfowitz , the Deputy Defence Secretary, said that the US had not been prepared to wait for clear evidence of Iraq’s threat before attacking .

“The nature of terrorism is that intelligence about terrorism is murky,” Mr Wolfowitz told Fox News Sunday.

His remarks will be seen as continuing to prepare Americans for the possibility that WMD might never be found. Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, said in May that it was “possible that they decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict”.


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