Operation Rockingham

According to reporter Neil Mackay of the Sunday Herald, Operation Rockingham was "a covert 'dirty tricks' operation" set up by the British Ministry of Defence in 1991 and "designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq."

Scott Ritter described it as an operation "to sustain the allegation that Iraq had WMD [when] Unscom was showing the opposite."  --- British Parliament, House of Commons, Examination of witnesses, Wednesday, 24 June 1998. Brigadier Richard Holmes, Brigadier John Smales, and Mr. John Tesh.

Question 1456: (Brigadier Holmes) "Small numbers, 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. So it is mainly specialists and the chap who caught my eye is an officer on UNSCOM inspections in Iraq."

Note: Interpret as you will! --

SourceWatch Resources

 * Office of Special Plans