The case for war is blown apart..........

[Thinkerman]

The case for war is blown apart

 

 

By Ben Russell and Andy McSmith in Kuwait City

29 May 2003

 

 

Tony Blair stood accused last night of misleading Parliament and the British people over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and his claims that the threat posed by Iraq justified war.

 

Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, seized on a "breathtaking" statement by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that Iraq's weapons may have been destroyed before the war, and anger boiled over among MPs who said the admission undermined the legal and political justification for war.

 

Mr Blair insisted yesterday he had "absolutely no doubt at all about the existence of weapons of mass destruction".

 

But Mr Cook said the Prime Minister's claims that Saddam could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes were patently false. He added that Mr Rumsfeld's statement "blows an enormous gaping hole in the case for war made on both sides of the Atlantic" and called for MPs to hold an investigation.

 

Meanwhile, Labour rebels threatened to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for the cardinal sin of misleading Parliament - and force him to answer emergency questions in the House.

 

Mr Rumsfeld ignited the row in a speech in New York, declaring: "It is ... possible that they [iraq] decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict and I don't know the answer."

 

Speaking in the Commons before the crucial vote on war, Mr Blair told MPs that it was "palpably absurd" to claim that Saddam had destroyed weapons including 10,000 litres of anthrax, up to 6,500 chemical munitions; at least 80 tons of mustard gas, sarin, botulinum toxin and "a host of other biological poisons".

 

But Mr Cook said yesterday: "We were told Saddam had weapons ready for use within 45 minutes. It's now 45 days since the war has finished and we have still not found anything.

 

"It is plain he did not have that capacity to threaten us, possibly did not have the capacity to threaten even his neighbours, and that is profoundly important. We were, after all, told that those who opposed the resolution that would provide the basis for military action were in the wrong.

 

"Perhaps we should now admit they were in the right."

 

Speaking as he flew into Kuwait before a morale-boosting visit to British troops in Iraq today, Mr Blair said: "Rather than speculating, let's just wait until we get the full report back from our people who are interviewing the Iraqi scientists.

 

"We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons."

 

He added: "Our priorities in Iraq are less to do with finding weapons of mass destruction, though that is obviously what a team is charged with doing, and they will do it, and more to do with humanitarian and political reconstruction."

 

Peter Kilfoyle, the anti-war rebel and former Labour defence minister, said he was prepared to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for misleading Parliament. Mr Kilfoyle, whose Commons motion calling on Mr Blair to publish the evidence backing up his claims about Saddam's arsenal has been signed by 72 MPs, warned: "This will not go away. The Government ought to publish whatever evidence they have for the claims they made."

 

Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: "No weapons means no threat. Without WMD, the case for war falls apart. It would seem either the intelligence was wrong and we should not rely on it, or, the politicians overplayed the threat. Even British troops who I met in Iraq recently were sceptical about the threat posed by WMD. Their lives were put at risk in order to eliminate this threat - we owe it to our troops to find out if that threat was real."

 

But Bernard Jenkin, the shadow Defence Secretary, said: "I think it is too early to rush to any conclusions at this stage; we must wait and see what the outcome actually is of these investigations."

 

Ministers have pointed to finds of chemical protection suits and suspected mobile biological weapons laboratories as evidence of Iraq's chemical and biological capability. But they have also played down the importance of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Earlier this month, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, provoked a storm of protest after claiming weapons finds were "not crucially important".

 

The Government has quietly watered down its claims, now arguing only that the Iraqi leader had weapons at some time before the war broke out.

 

Tony Benn, the former Labour minister, told LBC Radio: "I believe the Prime Minister lied to us and lied to us and lied to us. The whole war was built upon falsehood and I think the long-term damage will be to democracy in Britain. If you can't believe what you are told by ministers, the whole democratic process is put at risk. You can't be allowed to get away with telling lies for political purposes."

 

Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, said MPs "supported war based on a lie". He said: "If it's right Iraq destroyed the weapons prior to the war, then it means Iraq complied with the United Nations resolution 1441."

 

The former Labour minister Glenda Jackson added: "If the creators of this war are now saying weapons of mass destruction were destroyed before the war began, then all the government ministers who stood on the floor in the House of Commons adamantly speaking of the immediate threat are standing on shaky ground."

 

The build-up to war: What they said

 

Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons

 

George Bush, Us President 18 March, 2003

 

We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd

 

Tony Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003

 

Saddam's removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction

 

Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary 2 April, 2003

 

Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit

 

Tony Blair 28 April, 2003

 

 

It is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy them prior to the conflict

 

 

Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary 28 May, 2003

29 May 2003 09:38

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

Shujui-1, saxib, The neo-cons betrayed poor Tony Blair.

[Thinkerman]

lol was any other outcome possibe LST, buts it good though because TB is lookin like a right muppet right now in UK as he faces questions from all quaters of parliment.

[Paragon]

Libaax lol sxb, meesha they even shy away from calling him Tony, they are more than happy to brand him : "Bush's Poodle". On top of that, he is now in a tight grip being questioned thoroughly by the HOC on the issue of Iraq's WMDs. Lets see if he escapes from this heated debate unscathed.

[Valenteenah.]

Oh yeah! He's definitely got his back against the wall, regarding not only the 'mishandling of the Iraq war' but also on issues relating to Europe. He has lost the public's confidence and trust and has no-one to blame but himself and Bush Junior of course.

[Paragon]

Barwaaqo the little miskiin is cornered. I wouldn't wish to be politically placed in between ian Duncan Smith and the Lib-Dems, plus Robin Cook (a man who commands integrity) who can an unleash unfettered wit which may divide labour right in the middle.

 

Shujui - Nice abbreviation sxb .. TB for Tony Blair, the man's actions are contegious, abit more infectious than Foot-n-Toot

[Thinkerman]

Shujui - Nice abbreviation sxb .. TB for Tony Blair, the man's actions are contegious, abit more infectious than Foot-n-Toot

quality lol.

 

So do you think they would ever cave in to the demands for a full public enquriy rather than just teh behaind doors parlimentry enquiry??

[Thinkerman]

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Wolfowitz : Iraq War Was About Oil

by George Wright

 

Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war.

 

 

Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.

 

Paul Wolfowitz

US Deputy Defense Secretary

 

The US Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil.

 

Mr Wolfowitz went on to tell journalists at the conference that the US was set on a path of negotiation to help defuse tensions between North Korea and its neighbors - in contrast to the more belligerent attitude the Bush administration displayed in its dealings with Iraq.

 

His latest comments follow his widely reported statement from an interview in Vanity Fair last month, in which he said that "for reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on: weapons of mass destruction."

 

Amid growing calls from all parties for a public inquiry, the foreign affairs select committee announced last night it would investigate claims that the UK government misled the country over its evidence of Iraq's WMD.

 

Prior to that, his boss, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, had already undermined the British government's position by saying Saddam Hussein may have destroyed his banned weapons before the war.

 

Mr Wolfowitz's frank assessment of the importance of oil could not come at a worse time for the US and UK governments, which are both facing fierce criticism at home and abroad over allegations that they exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in order to justify the war.

 

 

The move is a major setback for Tony Blair, who had hoped to contain any inquiry within the intelligence and security committee, which meets in secret and reports to the prime minister.

 

In the US, the failure to find solid proof of chemical, biological and nuclear arms in Iraq has raised similar concerns over Mr Bush's justification for the war and prompted calls for congressional investigations.

 

Mr Wolfowitz is viewed as one of the most hawkish members of the Bush administration. The 57-year old expert in international relations was a strong advocate of military action against Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Following the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Mr Wolfowitz pledged that the US would pursue terrorists and "end" states' harboring or sponsoring of militants.

 

Prior to his appointment to the Bush cabinet in February 2001, Mr Wolfowitz was dean and professor of international relations at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), of the Johns Hopkins University.

 

source: © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

 

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[Thinkerman]

Just thought i would post this up as an update article.

 

The piece is on the Foriegn Affairs select committes question of amongts others Robin Cook (Former Foreign minster n Cabinet Member) and Claire Short (For Minster for International Development and 3rd world)

 

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Exposed: Blair, Iraq and the great deception

By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent

18 June 2003

 

 

Tony Blair was charged with deliberately misleading the public over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction yesterday as two former cabinet ministers revealed that MI6 believed Saddam Hussein's arsenal posed no immediate threat.

 

In an extraordinary public hearing at Westminster, Clare Short and Robin Cook told MPs that intelligence chiefs had concluded that the risk of Saddam using chemical or biological weapons was not high.

 

Ms Short, the former secretary of state for international development, said Mr Blair was guilty of "honourable deception" and claimed he used "a series of half-truths, exaggerations, reassurances that were not the case to get us into conflict by the spring.

 

"I believe that the Prime Minister must have concluded that it was honourable and desirable to back the US in going for military action in Iraq and therefore it was honourable for him to persuade us through various ruses and ways to get us there - so for him I think it was an honourable deception," said Ms Short.

 

Mr Cook, the former foreign secretary, accused ministers of "not presenting the whole picture" and presenting selective evidence to back the case for war.

 

Both former ministers said Mr Blair exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and condemned the Government's dossier on Saddam's arsenal as "shoddy" and "thin".

 

They spoke out at the start of the all-party Commons Foreign Affairs Committee's inquiry into Mr Blair's handling of the run-up to war.

 

Their testimony, based on detailed knowledge of intelligence reports from Iraq and personal briefings with senior figures from the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, undermined repeated claims made by Mr Blair and other senior ministers that Saddam represented an imminent threat to the Middle East and world.

 

Mr Cook told MPs that in his briefing with the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee: "I heard nothing to contradict anything I said in my resignation statement that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction in the understood sense of the term."

 

Mr Cook, who saw all intelligence reports on Iraq between 1997 and 2001, said he did not believe that Saddam had succeeded in building biological weapons. He revealed that concerns about Iraq had eased to such an extent in the late 1990s that Britain considered "closing the files" on Saddam's nuclear and long-range missile programmes.

 

Ms Short, who saw raw intelligence reports and was briefed repeatedly by MI6 and the Defence Intelligence Staff before the war, said: "There is a risk, but the risk of use is not high, was probably the tone."

 

She insisted that she had never heard Mr Blair's now infamous claim that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons "within 45 minutes" in any of her intelligence reports.

 

Both former ministers bitterly attacked the Government's dossiers on Iraq's weapons. Mr Cook said of the first dossier: "I was taken aback at how thin the dossier was. There was a striking absence of any recent and alarming firm intelligence. The great majority was derivative.

 

"The plain fact is that a lot of the intelligence in the dossier turned out to be wrong.

 

"Stripped down, there was very little in that document that presented new alarming evidence of an imminent threat."

 

He said the second dossier - criticised as "dodgy" after it was revealed to include material from a PhD thesis culled from the internet - had been a "glorious and spectacular own goal", while Ms Short said it was a "shameful piece of work".

 

Mr Cook said: "There was a selection of evidence to support a conclusion, rather than a conclusion that arose from a full consideration of the evidence."

 

Ms Short added: "This phrase 'weapons of mass destruction'. When that is used, people think of bombs full of chemical and biological weapons waiting to rain out of the skies. They don't think of scientists in laboratories doing experiments ... That is where the falsity lies. Yes, he [saddam] was dedicated to scientists carrying out chemical or biological work, but the suggestion to the public was it was all weaponised and a dangerous threat."

 

Mr Cook said: "Iraq was an appallingly difficult intelligence target to break. There was very little human intelligence on the ground and no hope of putting in a Western intelligence agent." But he warned: "The absence of intelligence is a bloody thin ground on which to go to war."

 

Ms Short used her hour-long appearance to attack Mr Blair's style of government, accusing a cabal of unelected advisers of sidelining the Cabinet and the Foreign Office in the approach to war.

 

She said: "Things were not decided properly; no records, no papers; in the Prime Minister's study - all informal with a small group of in people."

 

Downing Street declined to respond to the claims.

 

Michael Ancram, the shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "This reinforces our call for an independent judicial inquiry."

 

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