Gordon Carrera

I think backwater is the right word.

The head of MI6 from 1999 is a guy called Sir Richard Dearlove.

And we're going to talk a lot more about him.

And we're going to be hearing from him in the bonus episode for members.

So do join up.

The rest is classified.com if you want to hear that.

But he says, you know, the intelligence picture on Iraq was, I would say, neglected.

You know, that's his verdict on that period through the 1990s.

because it's way down the list of priorities for the Joint Intelligence Committee, which is the august body which sets Britain's priorities for its spies of what to collect.

By some accounts, it's like 20th on the list of priorities for the Joint Intelligence Committee at that period in the late 90s.

So it's low down the requirements.

You've got a thin intelligence base.

Britain does have a couple of sources, a little bit more maybe than the Americans.

We'll come back to that as well.

And so what you have...

And I think this is important is if you haven't got any new information, what you're left with is basically history and assumptions of what you knew to be the case in the past.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right, that the assumptions get hardened.

And so as we get to this point in the late 90s, Iraq is still under sanctions.

The population is suffering.

Saddam is using this as propaganda to blame the West.