The Clipboard: Cook gives first evidence to Iraq inquiry

From an article¹:

Mr Cook called last September's so-called "dodgy dossier" both a "red herring" and a "mistake", saying he had been "taken aback by how thin it was".

He continued: "Neither of us [the UK and US spying agencies] had much intelligence inside Iraq. The US was drawing heavily on exiles."
Mr Cook, who was leader of the Commons at the time of his resignation over Iraq, also revealed that the "dodgy dossier" had not been discussed at cabinet.

He said that by the late 1990s the government was confident that Iraq did not have nuclear or long-range missiles, and that "containment worked better than we had hoped".

And he urged the government not to "compound the error" by now not admitting their advice "was wrong at the time".

Calling the intelligence material nothing much more than an "alphabet soup", Mr Cook said the government went to war with Iraq using information that was "highly suggestible" and intelligence that was selected to fit its position. (link)

Cool. Robin Cook is still raising hell across the pond.

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Complete text of the article, Cook gives first evidence to Iraq inquiry, by Matthew Tempest

Former foreign secretary Robin Cook today dealt a series of devastating blows to the government's case for a war against Iraq, saying that it was "now clear that Saddam Hussein did not represent a 'clear and serious threat'".
Giving evidence to the foreign affairs select committee inquiry into the government's handling of the war, and the evidence to back its case, Mr Cook cast doubt on both dossiers of evidence against the Iraqi leader, revealing that "Iraq was an appallingly difficult intelligence target to break".

Clare Short - who, like Mr Cook, resigned from the government over the war on Iraq - is due to give evidence to the committee later this morning.

The detailed questioning of the prime minister's case for war will present a major embarrassement for Mr Blair, who is seeking to refocus the media's attention on domestic public service reform in a speech this afternoon.

Mr Cook called last September's so-called "dodgy dossier" both a "red herring" and a "mistake", saying he had been "taken aback by how thin it was".

He continued: "Neither of us [the UK and US spying agencies] had much intelligence inside Iraq. The US was drawing heavily on exiles."

Mr Cook, who was leader of the Commons at the time of his resignation over Iraq, also revealed that the "dodgy dossier" had not been discussed at cabinet.

He said that by the late 1990s the government was confident that Iraq did not have nuclear or long-range missiles, and that "containment worked better than we had hoped".

And he urged the government not to "compound the error" by now not admitting their advice "was wrong at the time".

Calling the intelligence material nothing much more than an "alphabet soup", Mr Cook said the government went to war with Iraq using information that was "highly suggestible" and intelligence that was selected to fit its position.

Mr Cook, repeated that the government had scored a "spectacular own goal" in publishing its dossier about Saddam Hussein. Asked if intelligence had been "sexed up" to back the decision to go to war, Mr Cook said: "I think there was a selection of evidence to support the conclusion."

He said he was "disappointed" by the quality of the intelligence in the September dossier as it did not provide "any recent and alarming" intelligence to suggest that Iraq was a current and serious threat.

He told the committee that the "great majority" of the paper was "derivative" from 1991. "I do not see there is anything wrong with a representation of an academic study of Saddam Hussein but it should have been labelled as that - an academic study."

He said it was "impossible" for him to defend the taking out of the phrase "opposition groups" and replacing it with the word "terrorist".

In his statement to the MPs, Mr Cook restated his belief, outlined in his resignation speech, that Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction.

He said: "This would now appear to be correct. Such weapons require substantial industrial plant and a large workforce. It is inconceivable that both could have been kept concealed for the two months we have been in occupation of Iraq.

"I have never ruled out the possibility that we may unearth some old stock of biological toxins or chemical agents and it is possible that we may yet find some battlefield shells.

"Nevertheless, this would not constitute weapons of mass destruction and would not justify the claim before the war that Iraq posed what the prime minister described as a 'current and serious threat'."

reference=http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,979260,00.html