[Debate] Pre-war Iraq 'not threat to UK', former MI5 boss says

[Riaz K Tayob]

Snip:

Pre-war Iraq 'not threat to UK', former MI5 boss says


29 August 2011 Last updated at 00:44 GMT
Pre-war Iraq 'not threat to UK', former MI5 boss says
Former MI5 boss Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller Baroness Manningham-Buller 
was director-general of MI5 from October 2002 to April 2007

Iraq posed no threat to the UK when then prime minister Tony Blair took 
Britain to war in 2003, former MI5 boss Baroness Manningham-Buller has 
said.

In a Radio Times interview, Baroness Manningham-Buller said the service 
advised war was likely to increase the domestic threat and was a 
"distraction" from the pursuit of al-Qaeda.

But she said it was "for others to decide" whether the war was a mistake.

She also said she "assumed" there would be another terrorist attack on 
Britain.

'Intelligence'

Baroness Manningham-Buller, who was director-general of MI5 from October 
2002 until her retirement in April 2007, will deliver the 2011 BBC Reith 
Lectures later this week.

She told the Radio Times: "Iraq did not present a threat to the UK.

Continue reading the main story 
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14702644#story_continues_2>


    "Start Quote

    It was the right thing to do. But yes, you do have to be aware of
    who you're dealing with"

"The service advised that it was likely to increase the domestic threat 
and that it was a distraction from the pursuit of al-Qaeda. I understood 
the need to focus on Afghanistan. Iraq was a distraction."

But she added: "Intelligence isn't complete without the full picture and 
the full picture is all about doubt."

Ms Manningham-Buller also described Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as "a horror".

*"It's very difficult - do you just stand by and watch people being 
murdered?", she said, referring to military interventions.*

Asked about Britain's friendlier approach to Col Gaddafi in the recent 
past, she replied: "There was a point to cosying up to him, to get him 
to forfeit his stockpiles of WMD (weapons of mass destruction).

*"It was the right thing to do. But yes, you do have to be aware of who 
you're dealing with."*

The former director-general also defended MI5 against suggestions that 
it could have prevented the 7 July 2005 terror attacks on London.

Continue reading the main story 
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14702644#story_continues_3>

"In intelligence, you can know of someone, without knowing exactly what 
they are going to do.

"The next time there is an attack, the same could be true - though I 
hope it won't be."

Baroness Manningham-Buller added that she "assumed" there would be 
another terrorist attack on Britain.

"This isn't a war you win in a military sense, and you can't anticipate 
everything," she said.

Baroness Manningham-Buller led the British security service through 
substantial change in the wake of 9/11 and the growing threat from al-Qaeda.

She is delivering the second phase of this year's Reith Lectures - which 
are being broadcast in September 2011 to coincide with the tenth 
anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington DC.

Across the three lectures she will assess the post-9/11 world, and will 
consider the role of security intelligence, reflecting on the threats to 
freedom and the means of countering them, as well as the implications 
for foreign policy.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, delivered the first 
phase of the 2011 BBC Reith Lectures on 28 June and 5 July.

*Read the full interview in the Radio Times, on sale Tuesday 30th August 
2011.
*

*http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14702644
*

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