FAILING INTELLIGENCE: The true story of how we were fooled into going to war in Iraq by Brian Jones
"Compelling and depressing stuff from the Whitehall expert on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." Professor Peter Hennessy
This book provides the truth about Iraq’s WMD and how the British government used and misused intelligence to lead us into war, by the UK’s most senior and experienced intelligence expert on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
As the former head of the UK Defence Intelligence Staff's nuclear, biological and chemical section, Brian Jones is ideally placed to explain how Britain was taken to war and the way in which the intelligence reporting on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was manipulated to justify Saddam Hussein's removal from power.
Jones calls on his own experience and knowledge, a variety of leaked documents, and the expert testimony given to a series of inquiries, including the current Chilcot inquiry, to examine how and why Tony Blair and George W. Bush managed to deceive their legislatures and their electorates into believing that Iraqi WMD were a real threat that could attack the West within 45 minutes.
He describes how Blair and Bush sought to use subsequent inquiries to cover up their own culpability in the deception, in order to facilitate re-election and keep their jobs. In conclusion, Jones pulls together the lessons that should have been learned both in relation to the use of intelligence to justify policy-making and with regard to broader international issues of security and governance.
Failing Intelligence is available to buy from the Biteback website priced £9.99