Israeli intelligence helped creating the fake Iraqi threat

Israeli intelligence created the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and his claimed weapons of mass destruction, an Israeli think-tank has suggested.

Israeli intelligence helped the U.S. and British services in painting a ‘false’ picture, said the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

The country’s secret services could lose their credibility over the Iraqi issue, Israeli politicians have warned.

"Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the U.S. and Britain in developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction capability," said the author of the report, retired Brigadier General Shlomo Brom.

"It badly overestimated the Iraqi threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that the weapons existed."

"If Israeli intelligence had argued Iraq did not have capabilities and there was no real threat, it would have had some effect," he added.

Senior Israeli politicians have raised concerns that the findings will have a negative impact on the perception of the country’s secret services.

"From now on, when we present serious data on other countries, like Iran for example, who will treat us seriously?" Israel Radio quoted Israeli left-wing parliamentarian Yossi Sarid as saying.

The Iraq Survey Group has been trying to reach an evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction - Bush’s main justification for invading the country.

British and American leaders have been facing mounting pressure over pre-war intelligence failure. Specially the release of intelligence and government documents suggesting that no evidence of such weapons was ever there before deciding to go on war on Iraq.

A committee of the U.S. Senate is now investigating how solid the pre-war intelligence on Iraq was, and what mistakes were made in interpreting it, and whether the information was manipulated.

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