Danes struggle to place blame for Iraq invasion

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Tuesday December 02, 2008 22:58

by Coilín

Foreign minister points finger at prime minister

The Danish evening paper, Ekstra Bladet, reports that foreign minister Per Stig Moeller has provided the parliament with written documentation to show that the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was aware of a UN report indicating that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, eleven days before the government submitted a parliamentary bill to invade Iraq. Fogh has previously denied all knowledge of the report.
This development may signal a rift in the Liberal-Conservative coalition and ultimately lead to a parliamentary majority to launch an investigation of Denmark's participation in the invasion.

The following is a translation of Ekstra Bladet's editorial on the topic:

Fogh gets the knife in his back

It is possible that the full investigation of the mendacious basis for (Denmark’s past participation in) the war (in Iraq) will not come until a change in government. After all, it needs a majority.

But it looks as if foreign minister Per Stig Moeller is already well on his way to ensuring that a forthcoming investigation will place the responsibility for the war lies exactly where he thinks they belong: in the prime minister’s lap.

The foreign minister has just submitted a decisive document to the parliament. This paper unequivocally places the responsibility for the government’s Iraq lies on prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

With the document follows a comes a great explanation problem for the prime minister. Per Stig Møller and Anders Fogh Rasmussen were – on the same day – asked to submit their copies of the UN report that documented that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Per Stig was first off the starting blocks. His reply – the day’s revealing document – shows that the prime ministers’ office and the foreign minister’s office received the decisive UN report about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction in an e-mail at 00.28 on 8 March, 2003. A full eleven days before the government presented its legislative proposal to participate in the war to disarm Iraq.

So Fogh has a problem. Per Stig has now documented that Fogh received the report. In an interview with Ekstra Bladet a few weeks ago, Fogh denied having received the report with the words: “I really don’t know anything about that!” And two years ago, Fogh submitted written “documentation” to the parliament to the effect that the report was never received in the prime minister’s office. It had disappeared.

Now Per Stig has documented in writing to the parliament that prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen lied. What does Fogh say? And what does the parliament say?

Please see Danish original, dated 30 November, here:
http://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/lederen/article1091725.ece

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Comments (3 of 3)

Danish Social Democrats want investigation of Iraq intelligence failure

Sat Dec 06, 2008 20:35

Translated from "Denmark's red daily paper" - Arbejderen:

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Danish Social Democrats: Investigation will expose Fogh

Pressure on the war government: Majority for investigation of Danish Defence Intelligence Service's role in the approach to the Iraq war ...

29 October 2008

A majority outside the Danis government now demands an investigation of the role the Danish Defence Intelligence Service played in the approach to the decision to go to war against Iraq. A forthcoming investigation will focus in particular on the DDIS's evaulation that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

"I am very satisfied that a majority is now emerging for an investigation of the Defence Intelligence Service (DDIS). Not so much in order to investigate the DDIS. We did that already during the (DDIS whistleblower) Grevil case. But more because a breach is appearing in the armour that the government and the Danish People's Party have surrounded themselves with," says the Social Democrats' defence spokesperson, John Dyrby to Arbejderen.

Before Denmark participated in the war, the government - and especially the prime minister - referred to classified papers about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction from the Defence Intelligence Service. After the invasion it was clear that Iraq did not have the alleged weapons of mass destruction after all.

"I hope that an investigation of the DDIS's role up to the Iraq war will show that the government distorted the intelligence service's reports to a considerable degree. After all, the prime minister made it sound as if it was completely certain that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. I am certain that the DDIS has never said that, as there was no basis for it," says John Dyrby.

In the spring of 2004, intelligence officer Frank Grevil revealed that the DDIS had always been in doubt about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
...
-----

The report above is an English translation of the following Danish original:
S: Undersøgelse vil afsløre Fogh
Pres på krigsregeringen: Flertal for undersøgelse af FE`s rolle op til Irak-krigen og i dag skal statsministeren svare på spørgsmål om krigsbegrundelsen
29. oktober 2008
http://tinyurl.com/5focq5

Danish defence minister loses temper re intelligence failure

Sat Dec 06, 2008 20:14

The Danish centre-left broadsheet Politiken reported on 20 November:

"Denmark's normally placid Defence Minister Søren Gade reportedly flew off the handle today during a Defence Committe meeting convened to discuss the 2003 failure of Danish Military Intelligence in its evaluation that Iraq probably had weapons of mass destruction.

The Service recently admitted in a memorandum that it had had too few sources, and the sources it had were not good enough. The Service also said it had relied too much on the evaluation of others.

As the discussion gained momentum, Gade retorted that there was nothing new in the memorandum, which, he said, was simply a collection of old information."

Please read the whole article in English here:
Tempers fly in Defence Commitee
http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article600826.ece

Fogh ne regrette rien!

Sat Dec 06, 2008 20:05

The Danish prime minister will not follow President George W. Bush's example and express regret for the intelligence failure that led his country to participate in the invasion of Iraq, Ritzau's news service tells us in a report dated 4 December 2008.

The chairman of the Danish Socialist People's Party (SF), Villy Søvndal, has invited a besieged Liberal prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to follow the example of the American president, George W. Bush, who admitted in a recent interview with ABC News that he regretted the use of faulty intelligence about Iraq's (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion of Iraq.

"The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq," he said.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=6368117

But the Danish prime minister refuses to acknowledge any similar regret:
"The nub of the matter is that the Danish government did not use weapons of mass destruction as grounds to go along in Iraq. We used Saddam Hussein's failure to cooperate with the UN. That makes a difference," says the prime minister in a report from the Ritzau news service, published in the centre-left broadsheet Politiken during the week:
http://politiken.dk/indland/article607584.ece

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Danes struggle to place blame for Iraq invasion

Comments (3 of 3)