I say that. They might have been overexcited but I believe that at the time, they believed Hussein had WMD, they were just wrong.
There was plenty of intelligence that showed no such thing and there was steadfast opposition to the war from many sides. There was some more than shady stuff going on with this:
en.wikipedia.org
On 13 November 2003, Gun was charged with an offence under section 1 of the
Official Secrets Act 1989.
[10] Her case became a
cause célèbre among activists, and many people stepped forward to urge the government to drop the case. Among them were Reverend
Jesse Jackson,
Daniel Ellsberg (the US government official who leaked the
Pentagon Papers), and
Congressman Dennis Kucinich.
[11]
The case came to court on 25 February 2004. Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer evidence.
[12] At the time, the reasons for the
Attorney-General to drop the case were murky. The day before the trial, Gun's defence team had asked the government for any records of legal advice about the lawfulness of the war that it had received during the run-up to the war. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny, as the defence was expected to argue that trying to stop an unlawful
war of aggression outweighed Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act. Gun was defended by
Alex Bailin KC.
[13] Speculation was rife in the media that the prosecution service had bowed to political pressure to drop the case so that any such documents would remain secret.
[12] A government spokesman said that the decision to drop the case had been made before the defence's demands had been submitted.
[12] The Guardian newspaper had reported plans to drop the case the previous week.
[14] On the day of the court hearing, Gun said, "I'm just baffled in the 21st century we as human beings are still dropping bombs on each other as a means to resolve issues."
[12] In May 2019
The Guardian stated the case was dropped "when the prosecution realised that evidence would emerge ... that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful."
[15]
In September 2019
Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, said the dropping of the case against Gun was not to stop the Attorney General's advice on the legality of the Iraq War from being revealed. He stated that Gun would not have received a fair trial without the disclosure of information that would have compromised national security.
Gavin Hood, the director of
Official Secrets, expressed scepticism about Macdonald's statement and called for the declassification of the official documents referred to by Macdonald.
[16]