British Intelligence Warned Blair of War - WP

British Intelligence Warned Blair of War:

"Seven months before the invasion of Iraq, the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that in Washington intelligence was 'being fixed around the policy,' according to notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting with Blair at No. 10 Downing Street.

'Military action was now seen as inevitable,' said the notes, summarizing a report by Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, British intelligence, who had just returned from consultations in Washington along with other senior British officials. Dearlove went on, 'Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'

British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke with his country's intelligence chief about seven months before the Iraq invasion. Blair was advised that the threat from Saddam Hussein might have been overstated.

'The case was thin,' summarized the notes taken by a British national security aide at the meeting. 'Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.'
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The notes of the Blair meeting, attended by the prime minister's senior national security team, also disclose for the first time that Britain's intelligence boss believed that Bush had decided to go to war in mid-2002, and that he believed U.S. policymakers were trying to use the limited intelligence they had to make the Iraqi leader appear to be a bigger threat than was supported by known facts."