Ken Sain

Another “secret” document from the British government has found its way into the press, this one revealing that the United States lied to Great Britain when it offered assurances it was not using napalm-like firebombs in the Iraq war.

But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. “The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you,” he told Mr Cohen. “I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position.”

Mr Ingram said 30 MK77 firebombs were used by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the invasion of Iraq between 31 March and 2 April 2003. They were used against military targets “away from civilian targets”, he said. This avoids breaching the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which permits their use only against military targets.

Britain, which has no stockpiles of the weapons, ratified the convention, but the US did not.

A half-dozen Downing Street Memos have been released to the media and now this. Either someone in the British government is out to destroy the Bush administration, or they have no idea about security and are unable to protect state secrets in that country. You decide which you want to believe.