OSP, de geheime dienst van Rumsfeld en Wolfowitz
De Sunday Herald schrijft: 'So how on earth did the British people come to believe Saddam was sitting in one of his palaces with an itchy trigger finger poised above a button marked 'WMD'? And if there were no WMDs, then why did we fight the war? The answer lies with Rumsfeld.
With September 11 as his ideological backdrop, Rumsfeld decided in autumn 2001 to establish a new intelligence agency, independent of the CIA and the Pentagon, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP). He put his deputy, Wolfowitz, in charge. The pair were dissatisfied with the failure of the CIA among others to provide firm proof of both Saddam's alleged WMD arsenal and links to al-Qaeda.
Regime change in Iraq had been a long-term goal of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. Even before Bush took over the presidency in September 2000 the pair were planning 'regime change' in Iraq. As founders of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), one of the USA's most extreme neo-con think-tanks, the pair were behind what has been described as the 'blueprint' for US global domination -- a document called Rebuilding America's Defences.' (Zie over PNAC en Rebuilding America's Defences ook deze DaanSpeak met de titel Al lang vóór 11 september 2001 was Irak een doelwit).

De dubieuze werkwijze van OSP
De Sunday Herald: 'That was the policy blueprint, but to deliver it Rumsfeld turned to the Office of Special Plans. Put simply, the OSP was told to come up with the evidence of WMD to give credence to US military intervention.' Normale geheime diensten gaan voorzichtig om met hun vergaarde informatie. Die checken de informatie en analyseren het. ''That wasn't satisfactory in Secretary Rumsfeld's Pentagon so he set up a separate office to review this data, and the people in this office, although they're described as intelligence people, are by and large congressional staffers. They seemed to me not to have deceived intentionally but to have seen in the data what they believe is true. I think it's a very risky thing to do', zegt 'Colonel Patrick Lang [, ...] a former chief of human intelligence for the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in the 1990s. He was also the DIA's chief of Middle East intelligence and was regularly in Iraq. He said of the OSP : 'This office had a great deal of influence in a number of places in Washington in a way that seemed to me to be excessive and rather ill-advised.'

Blair gewillig slachtoffer van OSP
'Most of the OSP intelligence was based on debriefings with Iraqi exiles -- a tactic, says Lang, which is highly questionable as the exiles have clear, personal agendas that might taint their claims. But even if the US was using selective intelligence to justify war against Iraq, does that mean that Tony Blair was also being briefed with OSP intelligence? According to Melvin Goodman, veteran CIA analyst and current professor of national security at the National War College in Washington, the answer is an unequivocal 'yes'. Goodman says that there is 'no question' that Blair was 'brought along at the highest level' by Bush and Rumsfeld, adding that the Prime Minister was 'vulnerable because of his own evangelical bent' over bringing democracy to the Middle East', schrijft de Sunday Herald.

Britse spionnen skeptisch over argumentatie Blair
'That US view has been corroborated by British intelligence sources who have confirmed to the Sunday Herald that the UK government was being influenced by the selective intelligence emanating from the OSP. Senior UK intelligence sources representing a range of views from across all the spying services said: 'There was absolute scepticism among British intelligence over the invasion of Iraq. The intelligence we were working on was basically of a technical nature coming from satellite surveillance and eavesdropping. The only real Humint (human intelligence from agents) that we had was from Iraqi exiles and we were sceptical of their motives.'
It was this 'tainted' information which was used to compile the crucial dossier on Iraq which Blair presented to MPs last September. The most sensational part of the dossier claimed that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes -- a claim based on one single Iraqi defector. A British intelligence source said: 'The information had been lying around for ages. The problem was we didn't really trust the defectors as they were working in their own self-interest and really doing their master's bidding -- by that I mean us, the UK. They also had one eye to the future and their role in any new Iraqi government'', schrijft de Sunday Herald.

Blair wilde een 'sexier' rapport
'Another source -- an official involved in preparing the Iraqi dossier for Blair -- told the BBC: 'Most people in intelligence weren't happy with [the dossier] as it didn't reflect the considered view they were putting forward.' Other sources said they accepted there was a 'small WMD programme' in Iraq, but not one that would either threaten the West or even Saddam's neighbours. Another said they were 'very unhappy' with the dossier, others said they were 'pissed off' and one described the claim that WMDs could be ready in 45 minutes as 'complete and utter bollocks'.
The Sunday Herald was told: 'The spooks were being asked to write this stuff. The dossier had been lying around for about six months. When it came time for publication Downing Street said it wasn't exciting or convincing enough. The message was that it didn't cut the mustard in terms of PR as there wasn't much more in it than a discerning newspaper reader would know.
'The intelligence services were asked if there was anything else that could be added into it. Intelligence told Downing Street that the 45-minute claim hadn't been added in as it only came from one source who was thought to be wrong.
'The intelligence services were asked to go back and do a rewrite even though Downing Street was told the 45 minute claim was unconvincing.' Another intelligence source was quoted as telling the BBC that they had been asked to rewrite the dossier as well to make it 'sexier'. The intelligence source said the dossier had been 'transformed' a week before publication. Blair has rejected each and every one of these claims as 'completely absurd'.

Blair negeerde ook Franse informatie
'The British intelligence source said the best Humint [human intelligence] on Saddam was held by the French who had agents in Iraq. 'French intelligence was telling us that there was effectively no real evidence of a WMD programme. That's why France wanted a longer extension on the weapons inspections. The French, the Germans and the Russians all knew there were no weapons there -- and so did Blair and Bush as that's what the French told them directly. Blair ignored what the French told us and instead listened to the Americans.'

DaanSpeak speelt mee in toneelspel
Met het artikel dat je nu leest, doet DaanSpeak mee met het toneelspel rondom de oorlog met Irak. Ondanks dat hoofdacteur Bush al z'n tekst moet voorlezen en zelfs dan nog komma's blijft lezen waar ze niet staan, doen alle volksvertegenwoordigers van deze wereld alsof het spel de realiteit is. Het volk zelf laat zich niet voor de mal houden en gaat massaal de straat op en protesteert. Het spel is dat we doen alsof het inderdaad gaat om VN-resolutie 1441 en de misdadige Saddam en zijn massavernietigingswapens.
De Amerikanen staren zich zo blind hun Pax Americana en op de olie dat ze niet zien hoe nucleair materiaal wordt gestolen. Ze waren toch zo bang voor massavernietigingswapens? Daarbij komt dat het bevrijden (of bevrijen?) van mensen in nood wel het laatste wat is de Amerikanen interesseert. Als het wel zo zou zijn, kunnen ze kiezen uit een lange lijst. Het is geen toeval dat ze het land kozen waar de op-een-na-grootste oliereserve in de grond zit, Irak. 'The war which will not end in our lifetimes will include: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Colombia, Venezuela, West Africa, and the Southwest Pacific; anywhere there are significant reserves of oil and gas. These conflicts are being created now through The National Security Strategy of the U.S. Afghanistan and Iraq were only the beginning', schrijft onderzoeksjournalist Mike Ruppert in een paginagrote advertentie in de Washington Post. Zie over olie onze DaanSpeak-serie.

Ook deze 'zaak-Blair' bewijst maar weer eens dat ook al hebben de inwoners van een democratie besloten geen oorlog te willen, ook al hebben ze gekozen voor een premier van linkse signatuur, dat de al vroeg gemaakte plannen om oorlog te voeren gewoon worden uitgevoerd, dan maar op basis van leugens. Eigenlijk moeten we nog blij zijn dat ze nog de moeite nemen te liegen.

DaanSpeak
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