Spymasters now facing interrogations

U.K. soldiers marking Christmas in the Middle East

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LONDON – Britain's spymasters, past and present, have been ordered to emerge from their shadowy world to stand in the spotlight and finally reveal their roles in bringing the country to war with Iraq in 2003, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

They are Sir John Scarlett, head of the Joint Intelligence Committee before he took over MI6 in 2004; his predecessor, Sir Richard Dearlove (1999-2004); Sir David Pepper, appointed in 2003 as head of Government Communications Headquarters, Britain's "spy in the sky" agency. MI5's former director, Elizabeth Manningham-Buller (2002-2007), will also be called.

Taking their turn to also stand in the witness box will be Sir David Ormond, the chief intelligence officer in the cabinet office of then Prime Minister Tony Blair; Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff; Geoffrey Hoon, who was secretary of defense at the start of the war. Tony Blair has been called to testify on why he led Britain to war.

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Following every word uttered by their old colleagues will be George Tenet, the former director of the CIA and Meir Dagan, who ran Mossad and still does.

For them all the anticipated year-long hearing will be make-or-break time for their reputations.

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Under the chairmanship of Sir John Chilcot the unprecedented hearing will start in London's Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center close to Parliament, on November 24.

Chilcot said he would cover "a wide range of topics during the hearing so as to establish a reliable account."

He has warned his witnesses that he will fully explore U.K. government policy on Iraq between 2001 and 2003 – the two critical years in the runup to the war; transatlantic relations during that time; policy and intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and planning by the military and other government agencies for the invasion and its immediate aftermath.

Dr. David Kelly, the government microbiologist whose mysterious death still remains unsolved, inevitably will overshadow the hearing. Blair's government sent the scientist repeatedly back to Iraq in the runup to war to uncover weapons of mass destruction that Kelly had already concluded did not exist.

From the Ministry of Defense, from the Joint Intelligence Committee and finally from Downing Street came the same demand: Iraq's weapons of mass destruction must be found.

Each time Kelly returned to London empty-handed he had been urged to go back to Iraq. The Chilcot inquiry will want to learn why his reports there were no WMD were not believed.

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