] American officials tried to discredit the work of ] inspectors in Iraq to further their own case for war, the ] chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has charged. ] ] In an interview with the BBC, Mr Blix said American ] officials leaked suggestions that inspectors had ] deliberately suppressed information to the media in an ] attempt to undermine their work in Iraq. He (Mr. Blix) also reiterated his disquiet at how documents the International Atomic Energy Agency "had no great difficulty finding out were fake" managed to get through US and UK intelligence analysis. Also disturbing, he said, was the question of who was responsible for the falsification. (If you are not Familiar with the fake documents, check out the story in the New Yorker.) WHO LIED TO WHOM? by SEYMOUR M. HERSH - The New Yorker Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraqs nuclear program? The forgery became the object of widespread, and bitter, questions in Europe about the credibility of the United States. But it initially provoked only a few news stories in America, and little sustained questioning about how the White House could endorse such an obvious fake. On March 8th, an American official who had reviewed the documents was quoted in the Washington Post as explaining, simply, We fell for it. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1 |