The Thick of It was fuelled by my anger at the Iraq war – and the way it left truth for dead | Armando Iannucci

Tony Blair's terrible decision inspired my tale of stupidity in the corridors of power - with a howl of frustration among the one-liners

Shortly before George W Bush and Tony Blair launched their war, the Arab League issued a statement declaring that invading Iraq would open the gates of hell". Of all the pieces of intelligence that the CIA and British agents were gathering at the time, this turned out to be the only accurate one.

The invasion was launched on evidence" about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that consisted mostly of whatever it was Iraqi informants knew our intelligence agencies most wanted to hear and would happily pay for. The biggest contributor to this self-fulfilling dossier was an alcohol-fixated defector called Curveball, who later admitted his improvisations about chemical weapons weren't true.

Armando Iannucci is a film and TV writer whose credits include The Thick of It, In the Loop and Veep