Andrew Gilligan’s revenge?
By andrewsimon - Last updated: Saturday, November 21, 2009 - Save & Share - One Comment
by Andrew Mason
The Sunday Telegraph is today carrying four separate stories about Britain’s involvement in Iraq following a very large leak of high-level classified Army documents. All of these articles are written by Andrew Gilligan, the former BBC reporter who was at the center of the controversy involving the late Dr David Kelly and the claims that Iraq could use WMD within 45 minutes of an order to do so. It is not clear whether the papers were leaked from MoD sources or from within the Iraq Inquiry itself.
The four Sunday Telegraph reports are:
Secret papers reveal blunders and concealment
Secret plans for war, no plans for peace
Britain ‘unprepared’ for nation building; and
Troops ‘rushed’ into battle without armour or training
Comment from Iain Paton (former RAF)
Time November 22, 2009 at 11:27 am
The leaked documents corroborate my own submission to Chilcot, from my own experiences:
- the existence of top-secret pre-war planning from September 2002 (maybe earlier)
- unprecedented appliance of the “need to know” principle which undermined wider operational planning
- rumours of equipment inadequacies which undermined the stated WMD threat
- wider supply and UOR failures
This will keep gentle pressure on Chilcot’s inquiry to follow the evidence, to avoid whitewash accusations. Chilcot will almost certainly be reporting to a Conservative government.
Wonderful to see Andrew Gilligan reporting on it. Revenge and cold catering and all that….