Gordon Carrera

I actually think it's much more complicated than that because Tony Blair says he went to his intelligence chiefs, even on the eve of war, went to the Joint Intelligence Committee and said to them, are you sure Saddam has got this stuff?

And they said, yes, he's relying on what they are told.

The spies were the ones who got it wrong rather than the politicians lying about it.

Now, that is not, before people have a go at me, to say that that excuses the politicians

from responsibility because ultimately it was a political decision to go to war.

And it was Tony Blair and George W. Bush's decision that they were going to go to war and Tony Blair's commitment.

And they are just using the intelligence as a justification for a political decision that they are doing.

So I think the ultimate political responsibility lies with the politicians.

But I do think there is a massive intelligence failure because the public were told and they were told that the weapons were there.

Yeah, there's an interesting line, which is that the French spies, for instance, so France doesn't go to war, stays out of the war.

And the French president at the time says, yeah, my people thought they were spies.

But he says something interesting.

He says spy agencies sometimes intoxicate each other.

Sounds very French.

It's very French.

It's this idea, they all kind of collective judgment.

So I think there was a kind of collective view that no one was willing to challenge.

And you're right.

The French believed it.

The Egyptians believed it.