In this post I want to take a brief look at what I believe to be a very credible possibility as to why Alastair Campbell needed to manufacture a synthetic media smokescreen in mid June 2003.
On 7th June 2003 Judith Miller (remember her from the David Kelly emails of 17th July 2003?) published this article: Some Analysts Of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use.
Judith Miller was said to be stationed in "Iraq and Kuwait".
On 5th June 2003, according to the 2003 Diary said to have been recovered from David Kelly's computer, David Kelly flew to Qatar.
Coincidence? Or not?
On 8th June 2003 the Observer published an article on the doubts about the supposed mobile weapons laboratories: Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs' Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs.
On 15th June 2003 the Observer published an article, Iraqi mobile labs nothing to do with germ warfare, report finds, stating that an official British investigation had concluded that the supposed mobile weapons laboratories did no more than produce hydrogen for weather balloons!
The first sentence of that article explains Alastair Campbell's abrupt need to create a media smokescreen:
An official British investigation into two trailers found in northern Iraq has concluded they are not mobile germ warfare labs, as was claimed by Tony Blair and President George Bush
Oops! The only (fictional) evidence found to support the pretext for starting the Iraq War disappears.
Tony Blair's "basis" for war is shown to be lies.
Tony Blair's assertions about WMD are shown to be lies.
It's not suprising that Tony Blair's Goebbels, Alastair Campbell, needs to manufacture a smokescreen in mid June 2003.
Was David Kelly the Biological Weapons Expert who uttered the following words?
They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.
If so, he may thereby, directly or indirectly, have signed his own death warrant.
According to an Observer article of 20 July 2003 by Martin Bright Qatar was a logistics base for the Iraq Survey Group, set up in May 2003 under the command of US Major General Keith Dayton. (Brig Deverell the British boss) So, I guess it was a market place for gossip involving Inspectors, embedded security service friendly journalists and so on.
ReplyDeleteRod Barton said the trailer intelligence came from a single source , identified elsewhere as the discredited Curveball
Relevant Hutton Inquiry exchanges centre round the journalist Peter Beaumont who was responsible for the quote. But if you read the exchange carefully, it could not have been David Kelly who provided it, as he was in Iraq at the time though Beaumont ran the story past him on his return. So who was Beaumont's source?
The mobile trailers were inspected by a very sceptical British Biological Weapons expert Hamish Killip in July 2003 which had him in hysterics.
The search for (non-existent) WMDs in Iraq passed from the 75th Exploitation Task Force to the Iraq Survey Group on 7 June 2003
ReplyDeleteJudy Miller was embedded in Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha within the 75th during April and May 2003 and seemed even to be directing its operations.
On Wednesday 4 June 2003, Dr John Reid accused on the Today radio programme He then accused Gilligan - who broke the story last week - of being the patsy of "rogue elements" in the intelligence services.