Lies, Damned Lies and Mr Campbell

Quite the most striking aspect of Alastair Campbell's evidence to the Iraq War inquiry is that most of it was untrue. Blatantly, breathtakingly untrue.

Take his claim that he was not making the case for war when he produced his dossier on Saddam Hussein's (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction.

Oh, yes you were, Mr Campbell. That was the whole point of the exercise.

Or take his assertion: 'I don't think we were ever saying, "look, Saddam has got these weapons and can whack them off to Cyprus in 45 minutes".'

Isn't that precisely what he was saying? Or if it wasn't, why didn't he set the record straight when the whole country 'misinterpreted' him?

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