Wednesday, April 07, 2004
MI6 has told members of the Butler inquiry... that it never again wants to be used by politicians to provide a public case for going to war.
I'm in two minds about this mainly because the Hutton Enquiry showed there had been meddling at the Government end, but it all does rather depend on whether the intelligence is accurate or not in the first place. This would seem to be less about whether it is right for intelligence to be used for political reasons or whether MI6 is trying to ensure it doesn't get embaressed in future if their information is incorrect. Next time we have a war we'll probably follow the lead of the American Neo-Cons and set up a rival intelligence unit to find out only goodfacts to support the Government line. The stakes are obviously far too high to rely on things like realfacts any more.
I'm in two minds about this mainly because the Hutton Enquiry showed there had been meddling at the Government end, but it all does rather depend on whether the intelligence is accurate or not in the first place. This would seem to be less about whether it is right for intelligence to be used for political reasons or whether MI6 is trying to ensure it doesn't get embaressed in future if their information is incorrect. Next time we have a war we'll probably follow the lead of the American Neo-Cons and set up a rival intelligence unit to find out only goodfacts to support the Government line. The stakes are obviously far too high to rely on things like realfacts any more.
