Blair knew better than to go to war on the word of a spy: "It is absurd that SIS's '45 minute' claim should have travelled from Vauxhall to Downing Street and thence from the prime minister to the nation on the word of a single unchecked source - the very methodology that has cost Andrew Gilligan his career. Only at the interface between intelligence and government could such a nonsense as the 45-minute claim have happened without somebody crying foul."
- posted by geoff @ #