the butler report has been released, makes for some interesting reading...
here are the main points of the report surrounding the intelligence that the government recieved...
- The 45 minutes claim was "unsubstantiated"
- No individuals were to blame for failures
- Intelligence had been pushed to the "outer limits but not beyond"
- There was no deliberate distortion of intelligence by politicians
- Limits of intelligence not "made sufficiently clear" in September 2002 dossier
the basis of the report showed that the government did not attempt to mislead or indeed 'sexup' any aspects of the dossier but relied on the intelligence services namely MI6 to provide as much information as possible using intelligence photographs.
mr butler also mentioned that we did not have 'many of our own sources' on the ground in Iraq and there was a heavy reliance on defectors or intelligence gatherers who mislead intelligence officials of what was happening on the ground.
the JIC which helped assemble the document was also mentioned.
mr butler mentions no one is to blame for the faliures of intelligence as people (namely tony blair) acted in good faith.
report in full:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp..._04_butler.pdf
chapters 1-4
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp..._chaps1to4.pdf
chapters 5-6
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp..._chaps5to6.pdf
conclusions
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp...tler_concs.pdf
annexes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp...butler_ann.pdf
source: BBC news
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3890961.stm