1. Iraq was responsible for the 11 September attacks

A supposed meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, leader of the
11 September hijackers, and an Iraqi intelligence official was the
main basis for this claim, but Czech intelligence later conceded
that the Iraqi's contact could not have been Atta. This did not stop
the constant stream of assertions that Iraq was involved in 9/11,
which was so successful that at one stage opinion polls showed
that two-thirds of Americans believed the hand of Saddam Hussein
was behind the attacks. Almost as many believed Iraqi hijackers
were aboard the crashed airliners; in fact there were none.

2. Iraq and al-Qa'ida were working together

Persistent claims by US and British leaders that Saddam and Osama
bin Laden were in league with each other were contradicted by a
leaked British Defence Intelligence Staff report, which said there
were no current links between them. Mr Bin Laden's "aims are in
ideological conflict with present-day Iraq", it added.

Another strand to the claims was that al-Qa'ida members were being
sheltered in Iraq, and had set up a poisons training camp. When
US troops reached the camp, they found no chemical or biological
traces.

3. Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa for a "reconstituted" nuclear
weapons programme

The head of the CIA has now admitted that documents purporting to
show that Iraq tried to import uranium from Niger in west Africa
were forged, and that the claim should never have been in President
Bush's State of the Union address. Britain sticks by the claim,
insisting it has "separate intelligence". The Foreign Office
conceded last week that this information is now "under review".

4. Iraq was trying to import aluminium tubes to develop nuclear weapons

The US persistently alleged that Baghdad tried to buy high-strength
aluminum tubes whose only use could be in gas centrifuges, needed
to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Equally persistently, the
International Atomic Energy Agency said the tubes were being used
for artillery rockets. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed El Baradei,
told the UN Security Council in January that the tubes were not
even suitable for centrifuges.

5. Iraq still had vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons from
the first Gulf War

Iraq possessed enough dangerous substances to kill the whole world,
it was alleged more than once. It had pilotless aircraft which could
be smuggled into the US and used to spray chemical and biological
toxins. Experts pointed out that apart from mustard gas, Iraq
never had the technology to produce materials with a shelf-life
of 12 years, the time between the two wars. All such agents would
have deteriorated to the point of uselessness years ago.

6. Iraq retained up to 20 missiles which could carry chemical or
biological warheads, with a range which would threaten British forces
in Cyprus

Apart from the fact that there has been no sign of these missiles
since the invasion, Britain downplayed the risk of there being any
such weapons in Iraq once the fighting began. It was also revealed
that chemical protection equipment was removed from British bases
in Cyprus last year, indicating that the Government did not take
its own claims seriously.

7. Saddam Hussein had the wherewithal to develop smallpox

This allegation was made by the Secretary of State, Colin Powell,
in his address to the UN Security Council in February. The following
month the UN said there was nothing to support it.

8. US and British claims were supported by the inspectors

According to Jack Straw, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix
"pointed out" that Iraq had 10,000 litres of anthrax. Tony
Blair said Iraq's chemical, biological and "indeed the nuclear
weapons programme" had been well documented by the UN. Mr Blix's
reply? "This is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass
destruction," he said last September. "If I had solid evidence
that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction or were constructing
such weapons, I would take it to the Security Council." In May this
year he added: "I am obviously very interested in the question of
whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, and I am
beginning to suspect there possibly were not."

9. Previous weapons inspections had failed

Tony Blair told this newspaper in March that the UN had "tried
unsuccessfully for 12 years to get Saddam to disarm peacefully". But
in 1999 a Security Council panel concluded: "Although important
elements still have to be resolved, the bulk of Iraq's proscribed
weapons programmes has been eliminated." Mr Blair also claimed UN
inspectors "found no trace at all of Saddam's offensive biological
weapons programme" until his son-in-law defected. In fact the UN
got the regime to admit to its biological weapons programme more
than a month before the defection.

10. Iraq was obstructing the inspectors

Britain's February "dodgy dossier" claimed inspectors' escorts
were "trained to start long arguments" with other Iraqi officials
while evidence was being hidden, and inspectors' journeys were
monitored and notified ahead to remove surprise. Dr Blix said
in February that the UN had conducted more than 400 inspections,
all without notice, covering more than 300 sites. "We note that
access to sites has so far been without problems," he said. :
"In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side
knew that the inspectors were coming."

11. Iraq could deploy its weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes

This now-notorious claim was based on a single source, said to be
a serving Iraqi military officer. This individual has not been
produced since the war, but in any case Tony Blair contradicted
the claim in April. He said Iraq had begun to conceal its weapons
in May 2002, which meant that they could not have been used within
45 minutes.

12. The "dodgy dossier"

Mr Blair told the Commons in February, when the dossier was
issued: "We issued further intelligence over the weekend about
the infrastructure of concealment. It is obviously difficult
when we publish intelligence reports." It soon emerged that most
of it was cribbed without attribution from three articles on
the internet. Last month Alastair Campbell took responsibility
for the plagiarism committed by his staff, but stood by the
dossier's accuracy, even though it confused two Iraqi intelligence
organisations, and said one moved to new headquarters in 1990,
two years before it was created.

13. War would be easy

Public fears of war in the US and Britain were assuaged by
assurances that oppressed Iraqis would welcome the invading
forces; that "demolishing Saddam Hussein's military power and
liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk", in the words of Kenneth
Adelman, a senior Pentagon official in two previous Republican
administrations. Resistance was patchy, but stiffer than expected,
mainly from irregular forces fighting in civilian clothes. "This
wasn't the enemy we war-gamed against," one general complained.

14. Umm Qasr

The fall of Iraq's southernmost city and only port was announced
several times before Anglo-American forces gained full control -
by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others, and by Admiral
Michael Boyce, chief of Britain's defence staff. "Umm Qasr has
been overwhelmed by the US Marines and is now in coalition hands,"
the Admiral announced, somewhat prematurely.

15. Basra rebellion

Claims that the Shia Muslim population of Basra, Iraq's second
city, had risen against their oppressors were repeated for days,
long after it became clear to those there that this was little more
than wishful thinking. The defeat of a supposed breakout by Iraqi
armour was also announced by military spokesman in no position to
know the truth.

16. The "rescue" of Private Jessica Lynch

Private Jessica Lynch's "rescue" from a hospital in Nasiriya by
American special forces was presented as the major "feel-good"
story of the war. She was said to have fired back at Iraqi troops
until her ammunition ran out, and was taken to hospital suffering
bullet and stab wounds. It has since emerged that all her injuries
were sustained in a vehicle crash, which left her incapable
of firing any shot. Local medical staff had tried to return her
to the Americans after Iraqi forces pulled out of the hospital,
but the doctors had to turn back when US troops opened fire on
them. The special forces encountered no resistance, but made sure
the whole episode was filmed.

17. Troops would face chemical and biological weapons

As US forces approached Baghdad, there was a rash of reports that
they would cross a "red line", within which Republican Guard units
were authorised to use chemical weapons. But Lieutenant General
James Conway, the leading US marine general in Iraq, conceded
afterwards that intelligence reports that chemical weapons had
been deployed around Baghdad before the war were wrong.

"It was a surprise to me ... that we have not uncovered weapons
... in some of the forward dispersal sites," he said. "We've been
to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti
border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there. We were simply
wrong. Whether or not we're wrong at the national level, I think
still very much remains to be seen."

18. Interrogation of scientists would yield the location of WMD

"I have got absolutely no doubt that those weapons are there
... once we have the co-operation of the scientists and the experts,
I have got no doubt that we will find them," Tony Blair said in
April. Numerous similar assurances were issued by other leading
figures, who said interrogations would provide the WMD discoveries
that searches had failed to supply. But almost all Iraq's leading
scientists are in custody, and claims that lingering fears of Saddam
Hussein are stilling their tongues are beginning to wear thin.

19. Iraq's oil money would go to Iraqis

Tony Blair complained in Parliament that "people falsely claim that
we want to seize" Iraq's oil revenues, adding that they should
be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through
the UN. Britain should seek a Security Council resolution that
would affirm "the use of all oil revenues for the benefit of the
Iraqi people".

Instead Britain co-sponsored a Security Council resolution that
gave the US and UK control over Iraq's oil revenues. There is no
UN-administered trust fund.

Far from "all oil revenues" being used for the Iraqi people, the
resolution continues to make deductions from Iraq's oil earnings
to pay in compensation for the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

20. WMD were found

After repeated false sightings, both Tony Blair and George Bush
proclaimed on 30 May that two trailers found in Iraq were mobile
biological laboratories. "We have already found two trailers, both
of which we believe were used for the production of biological
weapons," said Mr Blair. Mr Bush went further: "Those who say we
haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons -
they're wrong. We found them." It is now almost certain that the
vehicles were for the production of hydrogen for weather balloons,
just as the Iraqis claimed - and that they were exported by Britain.

13 July 2003

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=424008

2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd