I'm not an American, but I remember reading that there were (competent) people in the US intelligence services who had warned the powers-that-were that there were no conclusive proofs of WMD in Iraq. The issue was that the people in power didn't want to hear that from the intelligence services, so some other guys (they're mostly guys) from the intelligence services caught that hint and provided the desired "intelligence".
Here's an article about it, concerning the CIA: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06.... Here's another article about it, this time concerning MI6, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/18/panorama-iraq-... , where is mentioned that the French secret services had told the British that the WMD claim was bogus. I'm pretty sure that there were people inside the MI6 who also believed what the French were saying, but the higher-ups of course took the political decision of telling Blair what he wanted to hear.
I'm not an American, but I remember reading that there were (competent) people in the US intelligence services who had warned the powers-that-were that there were no conclusive proofs of WMD in Iraq. The issue was that the people in power didn't want to hear that from the intelligence services, so some other guys (they're mostly guys) from the intelligence services caught that hint and provided the desired "intelligence".
Here's an article about it, concerning the CIA: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06.... Here's another article about it, this time concerning MI6, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/18/panorama-iraq-... , where is mentioned that the French secret services had told the British that the WMD claim was bogus. I'm pretty sure that there were people inside the MI6 who also believed what the French were saying, but the higher-ups of course took the political decision of telling Blair what he wanted to hear.