Iraq weapons dossier draft reveals role of 'spin doctor'

[cal04]

· Final document shows 'striking similarities'
· Press officer had access to secret intelligence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/feb/19/iraq.iraq

Fresh evidence that a senior government press officer was closely involved in drawing up the government's discredited Iraq weapons dossier, despite official denials, was revealed yesterday.

A document the Foreign Office tried to suppress shows that John Williams, its director of communications at the time, had access to secret intelligence as he prepared an early draft in 2002.

The document suggests that Williams, a former Sunday Mirror political editor, used the same sources as the Joint Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sir John Scarlett, which produced the government's final dossier. Though there are striking similarities, Williams's draft does not contain the claim that Iraq could launch a chemical warfare weapon in 45 minutes - a claim central to the prime minister's case for war.

(snip)
William Hague, shadow foreign secretary, said the Williams document was "further evidence that spin doctors, not intelligence analysts, were leading from the first in deciding what the British people were told about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction". He added: "What is really needed is (a) full-scale privy council inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Iraq war."

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. An inquiry? 5 years later?

Let's get on that, gang. What's the holdup?