“I am writing to comment on the position taken by Alastair Campbell during his evidence to you … when he stated that the purpose of the dossier was not to make a case for war; I and those involved in its production saw it exactly as that, and that was the direction we were given.”-Major General Michael Laurie, British military intelligence official

General Laurie says that Campell, and then U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, lied to the Chilcot Inquiry (Iraq war inquiry) when they testified that their Iraq dossier was not a case for war.  Laurie says he and other intelligence officials were directed to specifically make the Iraq dossier a case for war against Iraq.

Laurie says that Air Marshal Joe French, a Blair administration official,  continued to pressure  intelligence officials to produce a report that would justify war with Iraq.  He says Air Marshal French was getting frustrated by lack of evidence to justify war: “We could find no evidence of planes, missiles or equipment that related to WMD, generally concluding that they must have been dismantled, buried or taken abroad. There has probably never been a greater detailed scrutiny of every piece of ground in any country.”