USA, UK: Bush did not even trust his poodle Blair on Iraq

From Blairwatch in Britain:

One of the advantages of the so-called ‘special relationship’ between Britain and America is the sharing of intelligence by the respective security services.

This has been proclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic as vital, especially in the ‘War on Terror’.

So it is interesting to read that Blair has had to protest to Bush over America’s refusal to share intelligence on Iraq with its ‘closest ally’.

This revelation comes from Bob Woodward‘s new book ‘State of Denial‘.

TONY BLAIR was angered by America’s refusal to share intelligence on Iraq with Britain, according to a revealing new book by Bob Woodward, the veteran journalist who exposed the Watergate scandal.

The prime minister protested to President George W Bush about the way intelligence was routinely marked NOFORN (no foreigners), denying access to the US’s closest ally.

In State of Denial, published tomorrow, Woodward reveals that raw intelligence gathered by British operatives in Iraq and fused with the Americans’ own data was stored on the classified Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET).

“The British couldn’t see it, let alone get a copy, because it was marked NOFORN,” Woodward writes.

British pilots flying American warplanes such as F-117 Nighthawks and F015E Strike Eagles were even denied access to classified pilot manuals for the same reason.

“At times it went beyond absurd,” Woodward notes.

Bush, Blair, and ‘co-operation against terrorism’: here.

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• Tony Blair should face trial at the Hague over Iraq, says Desmond Tutu (itv.com)
• Archbishop Tutu: Try Blair for war crimes – Telegraph.co.uk (telegraph.co.uk)

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