Scarlett should resign...
says Timothy Garton-Ash, in an excellent Guardian column.So here's how it went. This single unreliable source's claim was transmitted to the SIS, doubtless suitably exaggerated, by a politically motivated exile. The SIS's own caveats about the claim were, as the parliamentary intelligence and security committee noted last year, not adequately reflected in the JIC's summary assessment. That assessment was simplified and exaggerated in the Downing Street dossier, with Scarlett compromising the careful presentational rules of his trade to satisfy spin-doctor Alastair Campbell. It was yet further strengthened in Tony Blair's introduction, becoming the bald claim that Saddam's "military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them".
On a rope made of such feeble, twisted thread, we were led to war. The man who could and should have cut this particular thread, and several others, was Scarlett.
posted by Matthew @ 10/14/2004 10:11:00 AM
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