British spies knew too little: Report

LONDON: British spies did not reallyhave a clue – or, too many reliable clues - about Saddam''s infamousweapons of mass destruction (WMD), a key UK government-commissioned enquiry intothe quality of pre-war intelligence has cuttingly found.The inquiry(published on Wednesday), conducted over 13 weeks by one of Britain''s mostsenior retired civil servants, Lord Butler, comes exactly five days after the USjoint senate report rubbished the CIA''s knowledge about Iraq and itsWMD.Butler, whose report exonerates Prime Minister Tony Blair withthe praise he "acted in good faith", even said the very term WMD should be doneaway with.Without landing a right hook on Blair, the report issuesthe administration a very light tap. It says the government''s widely-quoted,globally paraphrased and powerfully presented dossier on WMD should not haveremoved the standard intelligence caveats, cautions and health-warnings aboutIraqi weapons capability.It was a "serious weakness that warningswere not made sufficiently clear," it says. The dossier went to the "outerlimits" of the available intelligence, it says.With a determinationto henceforth call a missile a missile and not a scary WMD, the report says theBlair dossier should not have baldly claimed Saddam''s Iraq could launch chemicalor biological weapons in less than 45 minutes. Instead, the claimshould have been qualified by explaining that it was only battlefield weaponsthat could be launched, Butler said.Commentators said Butlerobviously meant the Blair government had chased headlines and hype without hardintelligence, but the report still stubbornly refused to concede UK WMD claimswere "sexed up".But late on Wednesday, the jury appeared still outon whether Blair had allowed neutral, feature-less and unexciting intelligencedata to be padded out to make it comely and inviting.Within minutesof the report''s remarkable acquittal of him, a palpably relieved Blair smuglytold parliament this was the fourth UK government report to clear everyone of"telling lies or not acting in good faith" over the invasion ofIraq.Cynics said the report was yet another "whitewash" of an"illegal war". Butler, who has served five British prime ministers and was oncecivil service head, is seen by many as an Establishmentfigure.Opposition Conservative leader Michael Howard said Blair''s"credibility" had been shot to pieces over this war because no one would believehim if he next told the UK there was "a threat" that required militaryaction.The report issued a nuanced, diplomatic snub to MI6''sallegedly all-seeing, all-knowing third eye and its "limited intelligence".Late on Wednesday, faceless sources at the overseas intelligenceagency MI6, admitted they knew less than was previously supposed about pre-warIraq''s weapons capability.