“Britain and America’s spies believe that they are being politicised: that the intelligence they provide is being selectively applied to lead to the opposite conclusion from the one they have drawn, which is that Iraq is much less of a threat than their political masters claim. Worse, when the intelligence agencies fail to do the job, the politicians will not stop at plagiarism to make their case, even ‘tweaking’ the plagiarised material to ensure a better fit. ‘You cannot just cherry-pick evidence that suits your case and ignore the rest. It is a cardinal rule of intelligence,’ said one aggrieved officer. ‘Yet that is what the PM [Prime Minister Tony Blair] is doing.’ ”
– Paul Lashmar and Raymond Whitaker, “On the Brink of War: The Spies’ Revolt MI6 and CIA: The New Enemy Within,” The Independent, Feb. 9, 2003