Right, buckle up pals, because this is a slight departure from the Mummy Pig, KFC conspiracies you may have been diving into. This is something a bit more political and raw, as we take a close look at the conspiracies surrounding the UK government’s involvement in the Iraq War under Tony Blair from the perspective of a conspiracy lover. 

Conspiracy theorists are drawn to intelligence agencies like moths are to a flame. It is an obsession that can sting or burn the mind with intense episodes of hatred and paranoia. Yet, there is a morbid fascination that persists despite these negative effects. I would know this, because I am a conspiracy theorist and I have engaged in a great deal of obsessing about these institutions. This is primarily because secret services are well… secret. How can anyone really know what is going on behind the walls of the Pentagon, or MI6, or the Kremlin? That is perfect bait for the conspiratorial mind. One of the most iconic, wide-spread, and reported conspiracies surrounding UK intelligence services is that they willingly lied about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction in order to justify invading the country in 2003. 

This topic has been reported to death, but perhaps there is an opportunity to revisit the whole affair and shed a new light on one of the most notorious conspiracies of our time. 

In order to accurately convey this incredibly complicated and serious conspiracy, we need to start with basic facts. Fact number one, the British government under Tony Blair released an intelligence report on the 24th of September 2002 containing claims that the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein had the ability to deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of a given order.  Fact number two, on the 18th of March 2003, right before invasion, Tony Blair declared to the commons that it was “palpably absurd” to accept that Saddam Hussein “contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence” had “decided unilaterally to destroy these weapons”. Fact number three, on the 20th of March 2003, Iraq was invaded by U.S. and U.K troops. Fact number four, The CIA concluded that Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of “illicit weapons at the time of U.S. invasion, and had not begun any program to produce them.” Fact number five, the Chilcot report (the official report on the UK’s involvement in the Iraq war) stated that “The judgements about Iraq’s capabilities… and in the dossier published the same day were presented with a certainty that was not justified.” 

Let’s add some flavour to those facts. Here’s professor of International Relations and security Christopher Bluth: 

“Nowadays, there definitely is still a sort of misunderstanding on the WMD issue. It wasn’t an issue that was invented by the British government or the EU. 

“A threat has two components. There is capability and there is intent. They were wrong about capability, but they were correct about intent. Saddam Hussein felt that having WMDs was necessary for him to defend himself against Iran. In the public discourse, however, people mostly talk about the capability. But capability is actually less important in some respects than intent. Because capabilities can change and can be developed. The problem with intent is that it is much more difficult to prove and to understand.”

Now for a closer look at that report. The Chilcot report states that “there is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that No 10 improperly influenced the text.”  However, the report also stated that the forward to the 2002 dossier in which Blair infamously wrote that Iraq was a “current and serious threat to the UK national interest” did not reflect the views of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The committee specifically assessed that Iraq’s WMD threat was restrained by “the balance of power in the region and internal challenges.” 

Before we go any further, an analysis of the accused’s enemy is needed. To put it very, very simply, Iraq was ruled by a monster. For those of you who are fortunate enough to not have heard of Saddam Hussein and his 25-year reign of terror, allow me to end your good luck. A very apt summary of him and his regime’s transgressions comes from a paper produced by the European Union Agency for Asylum. It states: “Saddam Hussein and the Baath party used violence, killing, torture, execution, arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, enforced disappearance, and various forms of repression to control the population.”

Not to mention the small issue of illegal occupation and invasion. Professor Bluth has more: 

“Saddam Hussein was at war practically the whole time he was in office. He invaded Kuwait and occupied Kuwait. 

“Hussein was representing the Shia population. They were a minority in the country, but they ruled the country. To maintain this, you must use an extraordinary amount of violence. He killed a lot of people both domestically, and he engaged in a major war with Iran. 

“If you take the entire time period of Saddam Hussein’s tenure, you could make the argument that he was responsible for the deaths of about two million people. You can see that Blair became very convinced that to stop the suffering of the Iraqi people, there needed to be regime change.”

Two million people is a lot of people. Imagine yourself in a position of power. More specifically, imagine yourself as the head of one of the world’s most powerful countries. Wouldn’t you love the opportunity to stop someone who was capable of that?  

The question that arises out of all of this is, what constitutes a lie? If Blair genuinely believed that based on the intelligence given to him, Iraq was a threat worthy of invasion, then we cannot call him a liar. Accusations of conspiracy also become less believable, as the assessments in the dossier were based on actual intelligence. 

Human bias. Human error. The institutions work as they should, and the nefarious underbelly is our own psyche. Desperate to be saviors. Heroes. To be the victors of just wars. To be crowned champions of all that is decent. All that is kind. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was all so simple, Mr. Blair? 

Let’s load up those facts again: fact number one: Sir Richard Dearlove, then head of M16, demanded the inclusion of intelligence on Iraqi chemical weapon production that according to the Chilcot report: “had not been properly evaluated and would have colored the perception of ministers and senior officials.”  Fact number two: Sir William Ehrman, then director general of intelligence at the Foreign Office, claimed that his team had not received opposing intelligence on Iraq’s capabilities until a few days before the invasion. Fact number three: The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs reported that a total of 432,093 civilians died in the Iraq war. Fact number 5: According to official government data, 179 U.K servicemen died because of the invasion. 

Capability and threat. Capability and threat. Threat has to do with intent. What was the intent behind Sir Richard Dearlove’s actions? What would the intent be behind ignoring the intelligence from Sir William Ehrman’s team? Was that intelligence even seen by the prime minister? 

You see, I’m interested in moral ambiguity. It’s one of the reasons why I am so obsessed with conspiracies and intelligence agencies and power. It’s not about some shadowy secret society doing secret rituals for me, it’s about prime ministers or intelligence service directors thinking: “do the ends justify the means?” It’s a complicated world out there.