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Baghdad leaders reveal that coup plot duped MI6 Julie Flint explains how rumours of Saddam's overthrow caused British intelligence to miss vital information about Iraq's weapons programme British intelligence took its eyes off Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes because it had been duped into believing a military coup would leave Sunni Muslims in power in Iraq. Sources in the country say what they missed was a push to convert chemical and biological organisms into dry agents that could be hidden until pressure on the regime was lifted. 'From the second half of 2000, the focus of the British was not on...

    New Iraqi PM Not Ashamed of CIA LinksWed Jun 9, 2004 01:09 PM ET By Lin Noueihed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - New Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Wednesday he was not ashamed of having worked with the CIA and other intelligence agencies as head of an exiled group trying to destabilize Saddam Hussein's regime. "I was the head of a political organization in touch with at least 15 intelligence services across the world and in the region," Allawi said after a cabinet meeting. "We don't feel ashamed of having been in touch to liberate Iraq from the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi Governing Council on Friday nominated one of its own members, Iyad Allawi, a Shiite Muslim physician who spent years in exile, to become prime minister of the new government to take power June 30, members said. The chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, was at Friday's council session and congratulated Allawi on his nomination, said Mustafa al-Marayati, an aide to council member Raja Habib al-Khuzaai. The council also planned to nominate a president and two vice presidents. But it was not known whether U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has approved the choices. Brahimi has...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 30 — The Iraqi authorities, with the help of American intelligence agencies, are creating an intelligence service here that will focus on rooting out guerrilla fighters, especially those from outside the country, Iraqi and American officials said Friday. The service will employ some former agents of Saddam Hussein's security apparatus and will probably receive financing from the American government, the officials said. Many of the agents will work in the border towns of Iraq to identify foreign fighters who have slipped into the country and will monitor their activities, said Ibrahim al-Janabi, a senior member of the...

<p>Iraq's American-backed administration failed in its first week to choose a president, abandoning that mission in favor of a weak, three-man rotating leadership. The top U.S. official in Iraq -- who hand-picked the Governing Council -- returned to Washington while an insurgency killed another American soldier Saturday.</p>