The Butler report is a report in two dimensions. It is concerned with the relationship between British intelligence officials and British politicians. The missing third dimension concerns the relationship of the British with their American counterparts. On this matter, Butler, Hutton, Blair, most members of parliament and the media are silent.

In general terms, the government is proud of the special intelligence relationship, and we are told that British ministers spoke to their American counterparts almost daily during the run-up to war. But Butler and his colleagues produced a report with just eight references to the United States, and several of these are to US publications.

Butler does mention in passing that members of the Australian, Canadian and US intelligence communities take part in joint intelligence committee (JIC) discussions. In reality, several former officials have told me that the CIA sits in the JIC almost as a matter of course. So, were there any CIA or other US officials in the JIC when the dossier was being compiled or any other discussion on Iraq took place? The Butler committee does not appear to have looked at whether any of the invalid material was sourced in the US.

Once a comparative analysis of what the British and American services were saying is undertaken, it will become far clearer that the case for war was fabricated. The Pentagon's defence intelligence agency (DIA) has a close relationship with the MoD's defence intelligence service (DIS). And interestingly, both the DIA and the DIS concluded that they had no firm evidence that Saddam had chemical or biological weapons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1262585,00.html