Editing Operation Rockingham (section)

==The Rockingham Allegations==
Former US military intelligence officer and [[UN]] weapons inspector [[Scott Ritter]] claimed that Operation Rockingham was a secret UK intelligence unit in an interview with the Scottish  [[Sunday Herald]] in June 2003. Journalist Neil Mackay described the function of Operation Rockingham, in Ritter's words, as "producing misleading intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which could be used as justification for action against Iraq". The article claimed, based on Ritter's allegations, that the Rockingham cell was at the center of various British and US intelligence organisations collecting information on Iraq's [[Weapons of mass destruction|WMD]], and that the unit dealt with intelligence obtained from a variety of sources, including Iraqi defectors and the UN arms inspections organisation in Iraq [[UNSCOM]], which Rockingham had penetrated. According to Scott Ritter the unit amassed evidence selectively, with government backing, for political goals:

"Operation Rockingham cherry-picked intelligence. It received hard data, but had a preordained outcome in mind. It only put forward a small percentage of the facts when most were ambiguous or noted no WMD... It became part of an effort to maintain a public mindset that Iraq was not in compliance with the inspections. They had to sustain the allegation that Iraq had WMD [when] Unscom was showing the opposite."

For example, Ritter claimed, Rockingham would leak false information to weapons inspectors but then use the inspections as evidence for WMD: "Rockingham was the source of some very controversial information which led to inspections of a suspected ballistic missile site. We ... found nothing. However, our act of searching allowed the US and UK to say that the missiles existed."

Ritter alleged that "Operation Rockingham" assumed a central role within the UK intelligence system in building the case that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities constituted a threat to the UK and the US.

Ritter said that the Rockingham cell included military officers, intelligence services representatives as well as civilian Ministry of Defence personnel. According to Ritter, the British weapons expert [[David Kelly (weapons expert)|David Kelly]], played an important role in Operation Rockingham. Ritter describes him as "Rockingham's go-to person for translating the data that came out of Unscom into concise reporting".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Meacher|first1=Michael|author-link=Michael Meacher|title=The very secret service David Kelly referred obliquely to Operation Rockingham. What role did this mysterious cell play in justifying the Iraq war? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/nov/21/davidkelly.media |accessdate=23 October 2019 |work=The Guardian|date=21 November 2003}}</ref>

The day before he died, Kelly had told the parliamentary [[Intelligence and Security Committee]] (ISC) : "Within the defence intelligence services I liaise with the Rockingham cell." Although this evidence was given in secret, a transcript was released to the [[Hutton Inquiry]]. <ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20040202030348/http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/isc/isc_1_0003to0035.pdf Hutton Inquiry Report]</ref>

The press jumped on a suggestion that the only other public mention of "Operation Rockingham" prior to David Kelly's ISC evidence was by Brigadier Richard Holmes while giving evidence to the defence select committee in June 1998.<ref name=dsc-19980701>{{cite book |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmselect/cmdfence/868/8070107.htm |title=Defence - Fifth Report, Examination of witnesses (Questions 1540 - 1550) |id=HC 868 |publisher=UK Parliament |work=Defence Select Committee |isbn=0105534161 |date=1 July 1998 |access-date=24 February 2021 |quote=''Brigadier Holmes:'' Small numbers ''[of reservists]'', mainly specialists, serving Operation Warden, which is deterrent forces covering Northern Iraq; [[Operation Jural]], which is the no-fly zone over Southern Iraq; and occasionally Operation Rockingham, which is UNSCOM inspections in Iraq itself.}}</ref> This clearly overlooked the public references to Rockingham that had been made in 1991 and 1992.