UK Intelligence
Insider Sacked over Iraq WMD Honesty
- from The Insider Information Bulletin -
(Posted here by Wes Penre for
Illuminati News, April 10, 2004)
Jane
Errey, a Senior Defence Advisor for the British government, had access to
pre-war intelligence on Iraq at the very highest level. Her nine year career was
going well, until she was asked to write a report concluding that Iraq had WMD,
when the intelligence proved otherwise.
When Errey became unwilling to "lie or mislead the public" she was asked to
"consider whether working for Defence was the right job" for her.
This story never made it into the mass media in the US or the UK, so we thought
we'd show you ourselves, with the help of a leading Australian newspaper which
was one of the only Western sources to mention the story.
They blame absence of WMD in Iraq on an "intelligence failure". This is pure
spin. It is a clever way of promoting the assumption that there must have been
"some" intelligence to support their claims.
There was literally no evidence whatsoever of WMD in Iraq, and they knew it.
http://www.theinsider.org
SOURCE
Sunday Herald Sun (AU), "Sacked WMD adviser: I won't lie", 11 April 2004.
[
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9249982%5E421,00.html
]
A SENIOR Defence adviser has been sacked after refusing to write media briefings
that supported claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Engineer and analyst Jane Errey was an adviser to former Chief Defence Scientist
Dr Ian Chessell and wrote briefings for Defence Minister Robert Hill. Her job at
Defence gave her access to secret intelligence on Iraq's weaponry from the
Defence Intelligence Organisation and the Office of National Assessments.
Ms Errey claims that on the day before the Iraq war started, she was asked to
write what she believed was "sexed-up" propaganda about Iraq's capabilities.
The next day - March 20 last year - she went on holiday rather than write what
she claimed would have been a misleading briefing.
But she was sacked last Monday, after more than nine years at Defence, on
"performance grounds".
"I felt like I was part of the propaganda machine. As a public servant I
shouldn't be expected to write propaganda," she told the Sunday Herald Sun.
A superior had instructed her to compile media advice on WMDs for Senator Hill,
advice Ms Errey said would have misled the public.
"Anything that I was doing with respect to the war was making me uncomfortable,"
Ms Errey said. "Then to have to brief the minister and fundamentally give him -
even though I didn't write it - lines of propaganda that I didn't believe with
respect to the war was beyond what I was prepared to do. I wouldn't lie or
mislead the public."
The next day, as the war began, she submitted a leave application. Ms Errey said
that Dr Chessell suggested that, considering her views on the war, maybe she
should not be working at Defence.
"He told me that he was prepared to sign the leave form, but he thought that I
should consider whether working for Defence was the right job for me," she said.
Ms Errey's leave ran out and after taking sick leave, she applied unsuccessfully
for leave without pay. Since July, she has worked at a community organisation.
As Dr Chessell's senior executive adviser, Ms Errey - an electrical engineer -
had access to classified reports on Iraq's weapons programs.
"I had access to those reports. I used to read them before I'd take them in to
Dr Chessell," she said.
"There wasn't enough substantiated evidence from the reports I was seeing to
justify the war."
Ms Errey is the second disillusioned official to go public with doubts about the
Howard Government's claim that Iraq's weapons represented a threat. Andrew
Wilkie, an analyst at the Office of National Assessments, quit in opposition to
the war last year.
In July last year, Britain's Blair Government was at the centre of a scandal
after the suicide of Dr David Kelly, a senior defence scientist.
Dr Kelly was publicly accused of leaking a story that claimed intelligence on
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "sexed up" to justify the war.
Ms Errey, 43, explained her views to a parliamentary committee, but her
testimony was not mentioned in the committee report.
She said she was a highly regarded official within the Defence Science and
Technology Organisation until her opposition to the war became known.
She worked on the Collins Class submarine project and in DSTO's international
division and had access to all the reports submitted to Dr Chessell. She also
had the responsibility to brief him on issues of importance, including what
Senator Hill needed to know.
"Something that was going to Chessell, a letter for him, I would read and
generally draft a reply before I even showed it to him," she said. "If I thought
the minister needed to be aware of an issue, I'd draft the ministerial
briefing."
Ms Errey said there was debate in Dr Chessell's office in the months before the
war over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"His staff were the weapons inspectors, part of Hans Blix's UN team,"
she said. "So Chessell had a duty of care because his staff were the inspectors.
"The UN team was saying 'We haven't found any WMDs. Let us finish our job'. That
was different advice to what the intelligence reports were saying.
"The Government was saying, 'Look, the Americans are right and it's time to go
in'. I didn't agree."
Ms Errey received a letter from Defence on Monday that terminated her employment
"on performance grounds". But she said: "The real reason is I took a stand
against the war. If I hadn't taken that stand, I'm sure I would have been given
leave without pay."
At the start of the war, Mr Howard said: "We are determined to join other
countries to deprive Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, its chemical and
biological weapons."
A spokeswoman for Senator Hill said: "Ms Errey's case was a matter for the
Defence Department and the Public Service Act."
Updated/Revised:
Saturday, April 10, 2004 16:03:50 -0700