I had that Saddam Hussein in the back of my cab once...

[andrewducker]

The claim that Saddam could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45-minutes arose as British intelligence were "squeezing" agents in Iraq for information, under pressure from Downing Street to back up its case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

"The provenance of this information was never questioned in detail until after the Iraq invasion, when it became apparent that something was wrong," he said.

"In the end it turned out that the information was not credible, it had originated from an emigre taxi driver on the Iraqi-Jordanian border, who had remembered an overheard conversation in the back of his cab a full two years earlier."

From
(Edit - forgot to thank peteyoung for the link)

Comments

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Ladies and gentlemen, the future president of Europe.

[hano.livejournal.com]

Christ, this getting so beyond satire. Why on earth isn't Blair in the Hague? All this induces a profound and terrible rage the more one hears about it.

[cdave]

Mark Thomas said at the time that "Tony Blair, Geoff Hoon and Jack Straw have all been served with papers informing them of the consequences of war on Iraq. .

"I 'ad that Chemical Ali in my taxi I did..."

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Dear god, can you imagine?

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

I just watched the entire 1 hour 51 minutes of Scarlett's testimony to The Iraq Inquiry and no questioning about dodgy cab drivers, but inevitable claims the intelligence was good even though history has shown it was utter balls.

I'm rather with Robert Fisk on this: we don't need an inquiry, we already know everything there is to know.

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

... So it's an impeccable source, then.