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GlobalResearch.ca reports:

Specifically, a new report from the bipartisan House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee – based on interviews with all of the key British decision-makers, review of documents, and on-the-ground investigations in Africa – found that Libyan war was based on lies, that it destroyed the country, and that it spread terrorism far and wide.

Is it true?

Sakib Arifin
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    Are you asking if the political decision was based on bogus intelligence, or that the public justifications were based on bogus intelligence? – user1666620 Oct 21 '16 at 13:04
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    This is the report itself - read it instead of somebody's interpretation of it and make up your own mind: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/11902.htm?utm_source=119&utm_medium=fullbullet&utm_campaign=modulereports – user1666620 Oct 21 '16 at 13:39
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    I can still see two questions here: (1) Did a report say the intelligence was bogus? (2) *Was* the intelligence bogus? Which do you mean? – Oddthinking Oct 22 '16 at 03:25
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    Both are awkward questions, because bogus is an unclear, emotive and opnion-based term (as [Simon Singh found out](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8621880.stm)) and wasn't used in the report. Option (2) is near impossible to answer, because there is unlikely to be an authoritative source available to the public as the official investigation's report. What evidence would it take to convince you, either way? – Oddthinking Oct 22 '16 at 03:27
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    The obvious solution here would be to obtain a copy of the report (I assume it's public, no?), read it (or even do a text search), and see if it does in fact say that. Then you can ask the larger question of whether the report is in fact honest, or a politically-motivated hack job :-) – jamesqf Oct 22 '16 at 18:07

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The report includes the following:

In the course of his 40-year dictatorship Muammar Gaddafi had acquired many enemies in the Middle East and North Africa, who were similarly prepared to exaggerate the threat to civilians.

[testimony:] "Al-Jazeera in particular, but also al-Arabiya, were reporting that Gaddafi was using air strikes against people in Benghazi and, I think, were really hamming everything up, and it turned out not to be true."

An Amnesty International investigation in June 2011 ... uncovered evidence that rebels in Benghazi made false claims and manufactured evidence.

Many Western policymakers genuinely believed that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered his troops to massacre civilians in Benghazi, if those forces had been able to enter the city. However, while Muammar Gaddafi certainly threatened violence against those who took up arms against his rule, this did not necessarily translate into a threat to everyone in Benghazi. In short, the scale of the threat to civilians was presented with unjustified certainty. US intelligence officials reportedly described the intervention as “an intelligence-light decision”.

UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence.

It is correct to say that the report describes the intervention as being based on lies. These lies, originating from Gaddafi's political enemies, were spread by Qatari media and uncritically accepted by Western policymakers. (The report places the blame for the bombing of Libya on incorrect analysis of these lies, as well as major diplomatic and strategic failures on the part of the entire UK government.)

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Avery
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    Probably worth being explicit that the lies were ones told to British intelligence and believed by them, rather than lies told by British intelligence. – DJClayworth Oct 22 '16 at 16:06
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    Though this begs the question of whether the intervention was really predicated on removing threats to civilians, or whether the actual purpose was simply to remove Gaddafi, and anything about civilians was simply public relations spin? – jamesqf Oct 22 '16 at 18:11
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    @jamesqf The latter is by far more plausible. – ChanganAuto Oct 22 '16 at 21:20
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    @DJClayworth I'm not sure it is clear that they didn't know the claims were false. – James Oct 24 '16 at 14:45
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    @James I'm not *sure* of that, but I don't see anything in your sources that indicate British intelligence *knew* the claims were false. – DJClayworth Oct 24 '16 at 17:39
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    @DJClayworth So we can't be explicit that the claims were believed, but that they were used to build a case without being verified (see paragraph 38). – James Oct 25 '16 at 10:11