Remember The Dodgy Dossier?

This was the suspect document created by the British government that made the case for the Iraq war. It's been discredited for a long time, but new information has been discovered which makes Tony Blair look even more like Bush's poodle. It seems like they hired an official spin doctor to make sure the document was performing properly under the war brand.

Fresh evidence that a senior government press officer was closely involved in drawing up the government's discredited Iraq weapons dossier, despite official denials, was revealed yesterday.

A document the Foreign Office tried to suppress shows that John Williams, its director of communications at the time, had access to secret intelligence as he prepared an early draft in 2002.

The document suggests that Williams, a former Sunday Mirror political editor, used the same sources as the Joint Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sir John Scarlett, which produced the government's final dossier. Though there are striking similarities, Williams's draft does not contain the claim that Iraq could launch a chemical warfare weapon in 45 minutes - a claim central to the prime minister's case for war.

The 45-minute claim was made later, and subsequently withdrawn.

They ran an intelligence document by their press guy. Wonder if Ari Fleischer got the same treatment?

The fact that the 45-minute claim wasn't in the early draft, but so many other charges were identical, shows further that the document was sexed up, with something shocking added that Blair could use as a talking point for the public.

We're so used to government being run as a press operation in the Bush era, that it's not necessarily shocking that Britain was imitating this style. The case for war was so flimsy that all the rhetorical stops had to be pulled out. While the bitter-enders may thank God we invaded Iraq, sane people are looking for ways to ensure that this doesn't happen again. How about political consultants and press advisors don't get intelligence clearance?