Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
The poisonous propaganda behind the Iraq war still has purchase today
IAN SINCLAIR takes a look at the lasting damage done by the lies that took us to war at a time Labour is again embracing militarism
NO PLACE TO HIDE: Protesters outside at the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War

As the famous quote — commonly attributed to US writer Mark Twain — goes: “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that while the case for the 2003 Iraq war has been largely discredited, an unnerving amount of propaganda spread by the US and UK governments at the time still has some purchase today.

For example, Gerd Nonneman, Professor of International Relations and Gulf Studies at Georgetown University Qatar, recently tweeted about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD): “Saddam’s aim was to keep everyone at home & abroad guessing.” Similarly, a November Financial Times review by Chief Political Correspondent Philip Stephens of two books on UK intelligence matters noted the then Iraqi leader “believed his domestic authority in Iraq rested on a pretence that he still had WMD.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
SHAMELESS DISPLAY OF COERCION: Previously unreleased photos of Guantanamo captives, 2002, brought to Guantanamo Bay from Afghanistan by way of Incirlik, Turkey. [Pic: Staff Sergeant Jeremy Lock/CC]
Book Review / 6 November 2025
6 November 2025

GUILLERMO THOMAS enjoys a survey of the current state of the CIA (aka Langley) from an expert and insider of sorts

Dick Cheney in Iraq
US Politics / 7 November 2025
7 November 2025

ANDREW MURRAY looks back on the ignominious career of the former US vice-president, who died earlier this week

Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomes American President George W Bush to the first meeting of the G8 Summit at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland, July 7, 2005
Features / 26 June 2025
26 June 2025

While Hardie, MacDonald and Wilson faced down war pressure from their own Establishment, today’s leadership appears to have forgotten that opposing imperial adventures has historically defined Labour’s moral authority, writes KEITH FLETT