WMD hunt in Iraq run by the CIA to protect the CIA:ex-diplomat
Sydney, Aug 31: An Australian chemical weapons expert, who was part of the US-led team to trace weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the war there said he resigned from group as the hunt was “fundamentally flawed” and was controlled by the CIA to justify Washington’s decision to go to war.
John Gee, an official with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had resigned from the weapons hunter group, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), in March 2004 without citing any reasons publicly at that time.
But documents published in the Sydney Morning Herald said he quit the ISG as it was “run by the CIA to protect the CIA.” “I have concluded that the process here is fundamentally flawed.. There was a reluctance on the part of many here and Washington to face the facts” that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, according to a letter written by Gee to Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, published in the newspaper.
Accusing Downer of suppressing his letter he said the Foreign Affairs Minister “issued instructions it (my letter) is not to be distributed to anyone.” Last night, a spokesman for Downer said the minister “did not recall” receiving Gee’s letter but said he would check. But he described as “a conspiracy theory” material showing that the letter had not been given to the head of the Defence Department. “I have heard a lot of conspiracy theories over the years, but I have not heard that one before.”
