EX MI5 CHIEF SAYS IRAQ WAR INCREASED TERRORISM

In her evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry the former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller said the evidence on Iraq's WMD was poor and that terrorism had increased due to the invasion of Iraq. Chilcot has released a memo written by Baroness Manningham-Buller in 2002 in which she assesses the potential threats of terrorism if Iraq was invaded. The memo is available at http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/48051/letter-manninghambuller-gieve.pdf, and in paragraph 2 she writes,

There is no credible intelligence that demonstrates that Iraq was implicated in planning the 11 September attacks.

When asked about providing input into dossiers on Iraq, Manningham-Buller told Chilcot,

"We were asked to put in some low-grade, small intelligence to it and we refused because we didn't think it was reliable,"

She also told Chilcot,

"By focusing on Iraq we reduced the focus on the al Qaida threat in Afghanistan. I think that was a long-term major and strategic problem."

Well of course it was. That was the point. Grab Iraqi oil, oust Saddam as part of the A Clean Break/Rebuilding America's Defenses agenda, and keep global terrorism alive so that a global police state could be implemented.

But Iran still stands. Iran was named in A Clean Break, and in Rebuilding America's Defenses is named as more of a threat than Iraq. We now need to see what assessments have been made regarding Iran, because it is crystal clear that policy makers have been cherry-picking intelligence, and in some cases simply making it up, to drive an agenda that I think they don't fully understand.