Posted on 05/29/2003 9:33:31 AM PDT by Brian S
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
Any of the involved parties at the close of the Gulf War had the perogative to re-start hostilities if Saddam was in non-compliance of the cease-fire terms, which he was.
Anybody who told you this or any source you can find is wrong. The U.S. did not supply Iraq with biological weapons. The U.S., along with many other nations, did supply them with biolical materials for research on medical purposes. These sales were aproved by the Center of Disease and Control in Atlanta, not the DOD,CIA etc. In the 1980s, any college profesor had access to the same materials that the nation of Iraq could get.
However, Hussein had no intention of research for medical purposes, and built a weaponizing program instead.
Read post #2. That's exactly what I was responding to.
This proves the point that real Americans are making - You say we gave them bio weapons and then you say they don't have them. Which is it?
This reasoning would be absolutely correct if Iraq were a defendant in a criminal trial (for the crime of: possessing weapons of mass destruction) and the U.S. and the U.K. were its prosecutors. That is not the situation, however. The situation is almost nothing like that, in any way.
I remember a time when anyone who thumbed his nose at the United Nations was seen as a champion of some of the principles that conservatives hold dear.
Me too. And, isn't that what we did, thumb our noses at the UN for disingenuously failing to enforce their own phony rules? At least, that's what leftists always tell me when they say we did it "unilaterally" etc.
Anyone who truly believes that the United States government would have placed thousands of U.S. military personnal in close proximity to Iraq if there was any chance in hell that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction" is naive.
Then you must not believe the '91 Gulf War occurred. After all: we placed thousands of U.S. military personnel in Kuwait (at least), and: we knew that Iraq had various WMDs - at least, that's what leftists always tell me; in fact according to leftists we're the ones who supplied the WMDs to some extent. Right? Well, I believe the '91 Gulf War occurred in spite of all that. I guess that makes me "naive" and you know better.
Our best intelligence was that they had WMD's. If they destroyed them right before the start of the war, how does that disprove our intelligence? The mobile bio-labs were known to our intelligence and were subsequently proven to exist. So our intelligence was correct.
WMD was nothing more than the main point of the public relations sales pitch behind the war. The irony of this is that so many rational, intelligent folks here on FR bought into a propaganda campaign that was aimed at the same soccer moms that had been watching Oprah and salivating over Bill Clinton for most of the last ten years.
Two scenarios seem most likely to me. One, the stuff was well hidden to keep it away from Blix. Then one of two things happened; either our advance was so fast there was no time to take it out of storage and distribute it, or it was destroyed by someone who didn't want to be tried for war crimes. Second, the stuff was moved to Syria or Iran.
IMHO we are unlikely to find anything through our own inspectors, but will have to find the truth through interrogation of senior officials.
These kinds of weapons don't have to produced by a rogue nation with a "weapons program." For civilians in the U.S., Iraq was never the biggest threat from such an attack.
No its not. The rules for purchasing these agents were extremely lax in years past. Any professor at a community college could buy vials of anthrax, botulinum, etc. All they needed was aproval from some desk jockey at the Center of Disease and Control. The FBI, CIA, NSA, DOD, State Deparment, Congress, or even the president did give any form of aproval to these sales or even demonstrate knowledge that such sales were taken place. Such was the naivety of the laws regulating the sale of these biogical agents. It was assumed that since they were not weaponized that they posed no threat.
All I'm asking is for the truth here. The U.S. sure as hell didn't go to war over a "weapons program" that consisted of a few modified hot dog trucks.
Saddam had a long history of supporting terrorism. Just because he wasn't the biggest threat, it doesn't mean we should have therefore ignored him.
The world community had played patty-cake with Saddam for 12 years. We finally ended that game, and showed that we will no longer accept UN games and words as a substitute for action against rogue states. And other rogue nations are now on notice as a result.
Agreed. Didn't Blixman basically call Powell a liar when Powell said the mobile labs existed?
It's unsettling, to say the least, that there is probably a bunch of really bad stuff out there loose.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.