Operation Mass Appeal

Operation Mass Appeal was a British government operation alleged to have been a disinformation outlet on Iraq. 'It was launched', claims Sunday Herald journalist Neil Mackay, 'in the late 1990s on Tony Blair's watch and saw claims crop up... about Saddam developing nerve agengts and other evil super weapons of doom. these appeared in newspapers in countries like Poland or India or south Africa. Nations that were all non-alighned at the time'. According to Mackay 'onece the stories appeared in a foreign paper... British reporters would leap on them joyfully as free copy and reprint them back home'.

'The government has admitted that Operation Mass Appeal did exist', writes Mackay.

Mackay reports that Scott Ritter was involved in the operation and that according to ritter he 'met two men and a woman from MI6 at a lunch in London in June 1998 to discuss Operation Mass Appeal'. According to ritter:

What MI6 was determined to do by the selective use of intelligence was to give the impression that Saddam still had WMD or was making them, and thereby legitimise santions and military action against Iraq'.

People

Dr. David Kelly, 'may have been used by MI6 to pass on fake facts to journalists'. | Sir Derek Plumbly, former director Middle East department, Foreign Office - 'one of the key figures'.

Resources

See also Operation Rockingham

• Jonathan Rufford Revealed: how MI6 sold the Iraq war The Sunday Times, 12/28/2003
• Iraq confidential by Scott Ritter, Seymour M Hersh