Questionable intelligence

米英の情報操作疑惑

The investigation, it must be hoped, will clear up all relevant questions. How was intelligence gathered and analyzed? How was it used? More specifically, was it exaggerated or manipulated, to build the case for regime change in Baghdad? If the war was started on the basis of false intelligence, then the legitimacy of the war -- and the credibility of President Bush's doctrine of a "pre-emptive attack" -- will be thrown into serious doubt.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair -- as well as Mr. Koizumi and other national leaders who backed them -- believed, or seemed to believe, that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime was hiding those banned weapons somewhere in the months leading up to the war. The chief justification they provided for the military action was that those deadly arsenals, somehow concealed entirely from weapons inspectors, posed an immediate threat to regional and global security. That rationale now seems out of kilter with reality.

The fact is that so far no biological, chemical or nuclear weapons have been discovered in Iraq. The evidence suggests strongly that they will never be found. Mr. David Kay, who has resigned as the chief U.S. arms inspector, has testified in Congress that no large stockpiles of unconventional weapons existed in Iraq. His conclusion was blunt: "We were almost all wrong."

Last month an independent commission headed by Judge Lord Brian Hutton exonerated Mr. Blair from responsibility in the mysterious suicide July 18 of government weapons expert David Kelly, who had been "outed" as the source for BBC reports that Downing Street had manipulated British intelligence on Iraqi WMD. The Hutton report denied government interference and blamed the broadcaster for faulty journalism.

The BBC's chief executive and director general, as well as the defense reporter involved, resigned. Apparently basking in his victory, Mr. Blair said his government had never lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and that the true lie was that the government had lied. But large parts of the British public remain skeptical.

According to media polls, only about 25 percent of Britons think that the Hutton inquiry is impartial while as many as 55 percent believe that it was wrong to assign all the blame to the BBC. And about 60 percent feel that Mr. Blair cannot be trusted -- a de facto vote of no confidence.

The prevailing perception is that intelligence services may have oversold their findings under pressure from above. In Japan, too, it is difficult not to think, judging from last month's Diet dispute over an Iraqi security report, that "spin doctoring" may have taken place.

The work of the new British panel, according to the Blair administration, will be limited largely to technical questions, such as whether prewar intelligence on Iraqi WMD was accurate and what disparities existed between such intelligence and results of on-the-spot surveys. The odd thing is that the most important question -- whether London had sufficient information to justify its decision to start a war -- is left out.

In this regard, an editorial in a leading British newspaper offered a critical point to ponder. Noting that Mr. Blair knew that Mr. Bush would opt for war anyway, the paper commented, Mr. Blair decided to do the same, apparently in the belief that failure to do so would destroy Britain's strategic relationship with the United States. The forthcoming inquiry, it added, should look into the political process leading up to that decision.

This is a grave matter that concerns the Japanese public as well, given the pervasive perception here that Prime Minister Koizumi seems to have put the Japan-U.S. alliance before everything in supporting the U.S.-led war.

The Japan Times Weekly
Feb. 21, 2004
(C) All rights reserved

      調査では、情報の収集、分析、利用の方法に問題がなかったか、イラクの政権交代を画策するために情報が誇張・歪曲されなかったかなどが焦点となるべきだ。開戦が誤った情報を基に決定されたのであれば、戦争の大義とブッシュ大統領が主張した「先制攻撃」の正当性が問題になる。

      ブッシュ大統領、ブレア首相と小泉首相など同盟国の指導者たちは、フセイン政権が山中に秘匿していたとされるWMDが世界と地域の安全を脅かすとして開戦を正当化した。

      しかし、イラクで生物化学兵器、核兵器は発見されていない。

      デビッド・ケリー元英国防省顧問の自殺に関する英司法調査委員会は先月、ブレア首相に責任はなく、BBCの誤報に問題があったと発表した。BBCの社長、会長、担当記者は辞任した。

      しかし、疑問は残っている。英国国民の多くは、諜報機関が政府の圧力で情報を誇張した疑いがあると見ている。日本でも、同様の情報操作が行われたのではないかという見方が強い。

      英の今後の調査は、開戦前の情報と最近のイラクでのWMD調査に食い違いがないかなどの細かい問題に限られ、開戦を正当化する情報があったかという最重要問題は扱わないという。

      ある英の新聞社説は、ブレア首相は米との同盟関係を維持するためにブッシュ大統領を支持した疑いが強いとして、調査はその点に関する政治手続に重点を置くべきだとしている。

      これは、日本国民にとっても重大問題だ。日本でも、小泉首相は日米同盟関係を最優先して米主導のイラク進攻を支持したという見方が一般的だ。