Monday, March 20, 2006

Iraq intelligence ignored...by the BBC

The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes has been the only journalist that I am aware of who has consistently been on the case of the until-now classified intelligence documents recovered from Afghanistan and Iraq, specifically with regard to information that they hold connecting Saddam Hussein to international terrorism in general and in specific to Al Qaeda. He has been calling for the release of these documents for quite some time, and, having been joined by some allies in the congress, those documents have finally started to be released. Hayes has written two articles (here, and here) in the last few days detailing what some of the documents show. The are quite interesting.

Pretty big news, eh? Not, apparently, to the BBC, which has shown a complete lack of interest in either the on-giong release of these documents, or their contents. A search of the BBC's online articles returns not a single one about the Office of the Director of National Intelligence releasing the documents. Having embraced the conventional storyline that any such relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda or Bin Laden existed strictly as a function of Bush administration deception it appears that they are reluctant to disrupt that comfortable point of view, and would prefer to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

The BBC is not alone in its failure to report this story. Neither The Guardian (surprise, surprise) nor The Times has mentioned anything about it. Those of you seeking a more informed picture of Iraq would be better off taking what you would otherwise pay for the "license fee" and subscribe to the likes of The Weekly Standard and Foreign Affairs, places that are doing some real reporting these days.

2 Comments:

Blogger Lokki said...

We will all hear more about this subject now that the AP has published a story claiming that the documents show that Saddam had completely disarmed, but couldn't get anyone in the West to believe him.



http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq_WMD_Tapes.html

"BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Exasperated, besieged by global pressure, Saddam Hussein and top aides searched for ways in the 1990s to prove to the world they'd given up banned weapons.

"We don't have anything hidden!" the frustrated Iraqi president interjected at one meeting, transcripts show.

At another, in 1996, Saddam wondered whether U.N. inspectors would "roam Iraq for 50 years" in a pointless hunt for weapons of mass destruction. "When is this going to end?" he asked?"

11:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes they did have things hidden, including banned weapons, just not WMD stockpiles. (It is a common error to think ready-to-go WMD was the only thing the UN banned.)

See David Kay's report.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html

12:34 AM  

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