Michael I was the last king of Romania,reigning from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930 and again from 6 September 1940 until his forced abdication on 30 December 1947.
The Munich Agreement was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938,by Nazi Germany,Great Britain,the French Republic,and Fascist Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland,where more than three million people,mainly ethnic Germans,lived. The pact is also known in some areas as the Munich Betrayal,because of a previous 1924 alliance agreement and a 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic.
Geoffrey William Hoon is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire from 1992 to 2010. He is a former Defence Secretary,Transport Secretary,Leader of the House of Commons and Government Chief Whip.
Ryan Clark Crocker is a retired American diplomat who served as a career ambassador within the United States Foreign Service. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom,he served as United States ambassador to Afghanistan (2011–2012),Iraq (2007–2009),Pakistan (2004–2007),Syria (1998–2001),Kuwait (1994–1997),and Lebanon (1990–1993). In January 2010,he became dean of Texas A&M University's George Bush School of Government and Public Service.
David Christopher Kelly was a Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare (BW). A former head of the Defence Microbiology Division working at Porton Down,Kelly was part of a joint US-UK team that inspected civilian biotechnology facilities in Russia in the early 1990s and concluded they were running a covert and illegal BW programme. He was appointed to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in 1991 as one of its chief weapons inspectors in Iraq and led ten of the organisation's missions between May 1991 and December 1998. He also worked with UNSCOM's successor,the United Nations Monitoring,Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and led several of their missions into Iraq. During his time with UNMOVIC he was key in uncovering the anthrax production programme at the Salman Pak facility,and a BW programme run at Al Hakum.
Iraq –Its Infrastructure of Concealment,Deception and Intimidation was a 2003 briefing document for the British prime minister Tony Blair's Labour Party government. It was issued to journalists on 3 February 2003 by Alastair Campbell,Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy,and concerned Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Along with the earlier September Dossier,these documents were ultimately used by the British government to justify its involvement in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction:The Assessment of the British Government,also known as the September Dossier,was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002. Parliament was recalled on the same day to discuss the contents of the document. The paper was part of an ongoing investigation by the government into weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq,which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq six months later. It contained a number of allegations according to which Iraq also possessed WMD,including chemical weapons and biological weapons. The dossier even alleged that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons programme.
The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton,who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the controversial circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly,a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.
Andrew Stuart MacKinlay is a British Liberal Democrat politician,who was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Thurrock from 1992 until he stepped down at the 2010 general election.
Operation Rockingham was the codeword for UK involvement in inspections in Iraq following the war over Kuwait in 1990–91. Early in 1991 the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) was established to oversee the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Use of the codeword was referred to in the annual British defence policy white paper "Statement on the Defence Estimates 1991" where at page 28 it states "The United Kingdom is playing a full part in the work of the Special Commission;our involvement is known as Operation ROCKINGHAM." The activities carried out by the UK as part of Rockingham were detailed in the following white paper.
Joseph Charles Wilson IV was an American diplomat who was best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium;his New York Times op-ed piece,"What I Didn't Find in Africa";and the subsequent leaking by the Bush/Cheney administration of information pertaining to the identity of his wife Valerie Plame as a CIA officer. He also served as the CEO of a consulting firm he founded,JC Wilson International Ventures,and as the vice chairman of Jarch Capital,LLC.
The Niger uranium forgeries were forged documents initially released in 2001 by SISMI,which seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis. On the basis of these documents and other indicators,the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq violated United Nations sanctions against Iraq by attempting to procure nuclear material for the purpose of creating weapons of mass destruction.
Robert Dean Blackwill is a retired American diplomat,author,senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations,and lobbyist. Blackwill served as the United States Ambassador to India under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003 and as United States National Security Council Deputy for Iraq from 2003 to 2004,where he was a liaison between Paul Bremer and Condoleezza Rice.
The Saddam–al-Qaeda conspiracy theory was based on false claims by the United States government alleging that a secretive relationship existed between Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda between 1992 and 2003. The George W. Bush administration promoted it as a main rationale for invading Iraq in 2003.
During the lead-up to the Iraq War,the United States had alleged that Iraq owned bioreactors,and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train or vehicle. Subsequent investigations failed to find any evidence of Iraq having access to a mobile weapons lab.
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He served as Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997 and held various shadow cabinet posts from 1987 to 1994. Blair was Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007. He is the second-longest-serving prime minister in post-war British history and the longest-serving Labour politician to have held the office.
There are various rationales for the Iraq War,both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent hostilities. The George W. Bush administration began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The primary rationalization for the Iraq War was articulated by a joint resolution of the United States Congress known as the Iraq Resolution. The US claimed the intent was to "disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction,to end Saddam Hussein's alleged support for terrorism,and to supposedly free Iraqi people".
The Multi-National Force –Iraq (MNF–I),often referred to as the Coalition forces,was a military command during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and much of the ensuing Iraq War,led by the United States of America,United Kingdom,Australia,Italy,Spain and Poland,responsible for conducting and handling military operations.
A connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda came through an alleged meeting between September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi consulate in April 2001. This alleged connection is notable because it was a key claim used by the Bush administration to justify the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The Czech counterintelligence service claimed that Mohamed Atta el-Sayed,a September 11 hijacker,met with Ahmad Samir al-Ani,the consul at the Iraqi Embassy in Prague,in a caféin Prague. This claim,sometimes known as the "Prague connection",is generally considered to be false and has been said to be unsubstantiated by the Senate Intelligence Committee in the United States.
The Iraq Inquiry was a British public inquiry into the nation's role in the Iraq War. The inquiry was announced in 2009 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and published in 2016 with a public statement by Chilcot.
